





■ 



M 



■I 






f^3 



THREEFOLD GRACE 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 



JOHN H. EGAR, B.D., 

RECTOR OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH, PITTSBURG, PA. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1870. 



£3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 



Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



^ 



PREFACE. 



The sole ambition of this book is to restate 
in the simplest manner, and with such illustra- 
tion and reasoning as may show their systematic 
coherence, those practical truths relating to Di- 
vine grace which the author believes the Holy 
Scriptures teach and the Church has always 
held. Ever since he became familiar with theo- 
logical studies he has felt that the two extremes 
of thought allowed in the communion to which 
he belongs have, in a manner, divided these 
truths between them, and that the antagonism 
developed by their divergence arises from over- 
looking the fact that the principles of the oppo- 
site schools are but the other halves, respectively, 
of the doctrine which each holds. The one side 
insists, not a whit too strongly, upon the practi- 
cal bearings of the Incarnation, and its relation 
to the Christian Sacraments ; but it does seem to 
give too little place in its system to the extra- 
sacramental grace of the Holy Spirit, and so to 
obscure " the witness of the Spirit with our spirit 
that we are the children of God." The other 

(iii) 



iv Preface. 

side, dwelling with equal truth on the extra- 
sacramental grace of the Holy Spirit, given to 
every man and indwelling in the true believer, 
does not sufficiently insist upon the grace of the 
Incarnate Son, and His personal presence with 
His Redeemed; and so learns to depreciate the 
Sacraments, which are the Divinely-appointed 
instruments of sealing and exhibiting that pres- 
ence to the faithful soul ; and so, further, over- 
looks the blessedness of the Church as a body 
separate from the world, in sacramental commu- 
nion with its Divine, incarnate Head. 

The author does not flatter himself that his 
effort will be immediately successful in reconcil- 
ing the differences which have sprung up from 
these one-sided views ; but he believes that the 
system of the Church Catholic not only includes 
the positive teaching of both parties, but com- 
bines them in the unity of Truth ; and he has 
endeavored to point the way in which abler minds 
than his will labor successfully to bring harmony 
out of the apparent discord. 

Another object which he has had in view, 
has been to show the relation of the doctrine 
of the Trinity not only to speculative belief, 
but to the Christian life. He has felt that the 
argument for the doctrine, however powerfully 
and logically put, has failed in energetic influ- 
ence upon many minds, because it has not been 
carried forward so as to unfold the experimental 



Preface. v 

communion of the faithful soul with the Divine 
Persons of the Holy Trinity. Many sincerely 
religious people do not feel the necessity of faith 
in Christ as the eternal Son of God, because their 
apprehension of Christian doctrine does not assign 
Him a part in the work of grace commensurate 
with His Divinity. The view given them is some- 
thing like this : that the Father, being angry with 
the human race on account of sin, the Son came 
to earth and made an atonement by dying on 
the cross ; after which He went to heaven, and 
the Holy Spirit was sent to exert a Divine in- 
fluence upon their hearts for their conversion. 
True as every word of this statement is, it does 
not impress them with an adequate sense of the 
magnitude of Christ's work, because it is only 
partial truth. They are able to persuade them- 
selves that God, being a loving Father, can for- 
give sin without an atonement ; and in this way, 
having eliminated the work of the Son from the 
scheme of Redemption, they can remove His 
Person from the Trinity, and then, assuming 
Divine grace to be the Father's influence upon 
the hearts of His children, the result is either 
avowed Unitarianism, or the feeling that the 
doctrine of the Trinity is only of speculative 
importance, and not at all of practical value, 
and therefore not a necessary article of Christian 
faith. 

The remedy for this error consists in demon- 



vi Preface. 

strating the personal presence of our Lord with 
His people, bringing, by sacramental union, the 
saving virtue of the Atonement into personal con- 
tact with their experience, — the Holy Spirit, as 
the agent of the union, first preparing the heart 
by conversion and sanctification, and then graft- 
ing the Christian into Christ, as the branch into 
the vine. If Christian doctrine is presented in 
this way, the omnipresence, and therefore the 
Divinity of our blessed Lord, is brought home 
to the apprehension of Christian faith; the Atone- 
ment is given its true value, as a propitiation 
offered to the Father ; the three Persons are 
shown in intimate relation to the soul ; and the 
doctrine of the Trinity is demonstrated as it 
never can be by mere argument upon texts of 
Holy Scripture. 

This book is but a mere outline of the great 
subject of which it treats. It is sent forth with 
the earnest prayer that the Head of the Church 
will bless it to the furtherance of the Truth. 

St. Peter's Church, 

Pittsburg, Whitsuntide, 1870. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Mystery of the Holy Trinity ..... 9 

CHAPTER II. 
The Grace of God the Father ...... 43 

CHAPTER III. 
The Grace of the Son 82 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Grace of the Holy Spirit . . . . . .184 

CHAPTER V. 

The Place of the Sacraments in the System of Grace . . 238 

(vii) 



THE THREEFOLD GRACE 



THE HOLY TRINITY 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE HOLY TRINITY. 

"\ 1[ 7"E are baptized, by the command of our Lord, 
"in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost ;" a and therefore every one who is 
admitted by baptism into the Church of Christ is bound 
to belief in the Most Holy Trinity. For a minister to 
baptize a reflecting convert upon any other understand- 
ing — to act in the name — that is, by the power and 
authority — of a Being in whom that convert was not 
understood to profess belief, would be to sap his au- 
thority at the foundation, and to degrade the most 
solemn function of his office to be considered a fiction. 
For the convert to be met, at his entrance into the 
Church, with a ceremony which he is at liberty to con- 

* Matt, xxviii. 19. 

2 (9) 



io Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

sider unmeaning, would be fatal to the strength of any 
of his religious convictions, and would lead him to 
disregard all his religious obligations. Neither the 
minister nor the convert could thus tamper with the 
Sacrament. So long, therefore, as baptism is admin- 
istered according to the form prescribed by our Lord 
Jesus Christ, it will pledge the administrator to require 
and the convert to hold the faith in the divine name 
then pronounced, whether in the baptismal office the 
Apostles' creed have been formally recited or not. 
The bowing of the head to receive the water adminis- 
tered in that name is full and sufficient confession. 

It cannot be otherwise than that such an initiation 
into the Church was prescribed in order to make the 
confession of faith in the Holy Trinity essential to her 
existence, and necessary to the salvation of her mem- 
bers. The truth contained in the baptismal formula is, 
by the appointment of that formula, separated from 
other truths which are not contained therein; it is 
laid at the foundation, and declared to be the chief 
truth of all. The formula itself, by being pronounced 
at the beginning of the professedly Christian life, must 
be recognized as intended by the founder of the Church 
to assert that faith in the Holy Trinity lies at the foun- 
dation of all our religious beliefs. The following pages 
are written to show that this faith is also the foundation 
of all practical knowledge of the Gospel; for the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, of whom it teaches, are 
each personally in the closest relation with us, if we be 
true Christians, each operative in the work of our salva- 
tion through the threefold grace of the Triune God. 

The mystery of the Being of God, to faith in which 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. n 

we are thus pledged, is revealed in the Holy Scriptures. 
Their authority is the ground of its reception. Their 
doctrine is clearly, that the Lord our God is One ; but 
that in the Divine Unity there are three Persons — the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The mystery 
of this doctrine consists in this, that God is not only 
essentially, but numerically, One, and yet the Persons 
in the Godhead are three. In the language of the 
Athanasian Creed, " The Father is God ; and the Son, 
God ; and the Holy Ghost, God ; and yet there are 
not three Gods, but one God." Nevertheless, the 
Father is not the Son ; nor the Son, the Father ; 
neither the Father, nor the Son, is the Holy Ghost. 
That this Triune existence is incomprehensible to our 
understandings, there is no need to confess; but it would 
be easy to show that it is no more incomprehensible 
than some proposition in any possible doctrine of the 
Infinite and Eternal ; and therefore it is not to be 
objected to on this ground. 

The connection of the doctrine of the Trinity with 
our religious duty and experience is that which origi- 
nates the necessity of our receiving it. The Father 
enters into relation with us, through the Gospel, as God 
the Father; the Son, in like manner, enters into re- 
lation with us as God the Son; the Holy Ghost the 
same, as God the Holy Ghost. We must know this re- 
lation and act according to it, to do our duty aright, 
and to have a well-grounded hope of salvation. 

Our first labor, then, is a collation of those passages 
of Scripture in which the truth of the Holy Trinity is 
taught. 

i. God is One. There would be little need to offer 



v 



1 2 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

scriptural proof of the Unity of God, since all who be- 
lieve in the existence of a God acknowledge a supreme 
unity, were there not a possible misconception of the 
doctrine of the Trinity which would degrade it into 
Tritheism. a Indeed, there would be no need at all of 
this chapter, were it not that this book will fall into 
the hands of some who have not access to the theo- 
logical treasures of past ages of the Church, nor leisure 
to read more voluminous writers. For their sakes are 
here presented the outlines of the arguments by which 
the Catholic faith is proved to be the truth of the 
Divine Revelation. 

The first commandment of the Decalogue, pro- 
claimed amidst the clouds and thunderings of Mount 
Sinai, is so peremptory as to shut out all thoughts 
that there are other Gods than One, were there no 
other passage of the same tenor in Scripture: "I am 
the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have none other Gods 
but me." b The Decalogue is of universal authority; 
its mandates are as binding upon all mankind as upon 
the Israelites. 

At the second giving of the Law, Moses relates as 
follows, the reason for all the wonders which God had 
displayed before His people, during their forty years in 
the wilderness : "Unto thee it was showed, that thou 
mightest know that the Lord He is God ; there is none 
else beside Him." c For which reason he counsels the 



a This is a misconception which even so learned a man as 
Adam Clarke fell into — a proof of the uselessness of learning 
without judgment, in theology. 

b Exodus, xx. 2, 3. • Dent. iv. 35. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 1 3 

people thus: "Know therefore this day, and consider 
it in thy heart, that the Lord He is God in Heaven 
above, and upon the earth beneath : there is none else."* 
In another place his language is: "Hear, O Israel: the 
Lord our God is one Lord ; and thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy might. " b And in the close of 
that sublime song which he sang under divine inspira- 
tion, just before he went into Mount Nebo to die, the 
mortal instrument disappears, and the Divine Inspirer, 
in His own person, utters the words: "See, now, that 
I, even I, am He, and there is no God with me : I kill 
and I make alive ; I wound and I heal ; neither is 
there any that can deliver out of my hand." 

In Solomon's prayer, at the dedication of the Tem- 
ple, he ascribes to the one God alone the Divine attri- 
bute of Omniscience: "Thou only knowest the hearts 
of the children of men." 

The writer of the eighteenth Psalm, in the fervor 
of his inspired song, throws his denial of any other 
Deity besides the Lord into that form which, above all 
others, gives it force and energy — an interrogation : 
"Who is God, but the Lord? or who is a rock [i.e. 
of safety], save our God?" d And in the sixty-second 
Psalm the Psalmist confesses his trust in one only God : 
" He only is my Rock and my salvation." 6 

The evangelical prophet, Isaiah, rises to the most 
sublime heights, when he is brought into contact with 
heathen idolatry and Persian dualism, in emphatic re- 

a Deut. iv. 39. b Deut. vi. 4, 5. c Deut. xxxii. 39. 

d Ps. xviii. 31. e Ps. lxii. 6. 



14 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

pudiation of all partners in God's glory. Between the 
fortieth and fiftieth chapters, especially, the passages 
are very numerous, as thus : 

"I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory 
will I not give to another. " a "Thus saith the Lord, 
the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of 
Hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me 
there is no God." b " Is there a God beside Me? yea, 
there is no God, I know not any." c "lam the Lord, 
and there is none else, there is no God beside Me, that 
they may know from the rising of the sun, and from 
the West, that there is none beside Me. I am the 
Lord, and there is none else." d " Thus saith the Lord 
that created the Heavens; God Himself that formed 
the earth and made it. He hath established it, He 
hath created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhab- 
ited; I am the Lord, and there is none else." " Tell 
ye, and bring them near; yea, let them [i.e. idolaters] 
take counsel together. Who hath declared this from 
ancient times? Who hath told it from that time? 
Have not I, the Lord ? and there is no God else beside 
Me ; a just God and a Saviour ; there is none beside 
Me. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of 
the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." f 
" Hearken unto Me, O Jacob and Israel, my called ; I 
am He, I am the first, I also am the last." g 

The New Testament, of course, has the same doc- 
trine. When the devil tempted the Saviour, and 

Is. xJii. 8. c Ch. xliv. 8. ■ Ch. xlv. 18. 

Ch. xliv. 6. d Ch. xlv. 5, 6. f Ch. xlv. 21, 22. 

« Ch. xlviii. 12. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 15 

sought to allure Him to sin against the first command- 
ment, the Lord rebuked him by a quotation from the 
Old Testament: "It is written, Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. " a 
In His sacrificial prayer, the Saviour thus worships the 
Father: "This is life eternal, that they might know 
Thee, the only True God." b "We know," says St. 
Paul, "that an idol is nothing in the world, and that 
there is none other God but one." c And, "To us 
there is but one God, the Father. " d 

These passages abundantly declare that no teaching 
supposed to be derived from Holy Scripture may be 
accepted as militating against the truth of the absolute 
and simple unity of the Divine Being. They show 
that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be that of 
"three persons in one Godhead," as if the three were 
one merely in council and association \ but that it is the 
doctrine of the Litany: "Holy, blessed, and glorious 
Trinity, three persons and one God." 

The last text cited introduces the second point in 
the Christian knowledge of God — that He is a Father. 
The one God, of whom alone the Scriptures speak as 
the true and living God, and whom alone we worship, 
is everlastingly a Father. It is the assertion of our 
faith that God's relation as a Father is coeternal with 
His existence as God. He cannot be God and not be 
a Father. The name does not spring from a merely 
temporal relationship; it was not assumed by God 
simply because He has created a universe over which 

a Matt. iv. 10. c I. Cor. viii. 4. 

b John, xvii. 3. d I. Cor. viii. 6. 



1 6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

He exercises providential care. It has a deeper ground 
than the creation or preservation of temporal things. 
God was the Father before the existence of the uni- 
verse, or anything it contains; as always God, so 
always Father. Everlastingly existing, He never was 
when He was not a Father ; because he is from ever- 
lasting to everlasting the Father of the Son, into whose 
name we are baptized. The Son of God, by begetting 
whom He takes to Himself His name of Father, is an 
eternal Son ; and therefore He is an eternal Father. 
From this paternal relation spring all the acts of God 
to the temporal creation, as the Father of created ' 
beings. Hence we shall best reach the Scripture 
declarations of the greater truth, through the door and 
vestibule of the less — tracing, after the manner of our 
masters in theology, the lower relations of God's tem- 
poral paternity, and so ascending, step by step, to the 
eternal.* 

The first sense in which God is called the Father 
arises from His relation to all things as their Creator, 
through that figurative mode of expression by which 
the creation of inanimate and irrational matter is 
called a generation. "These," said Moses, "are the 
generations of the heavens and the earth, when they 
were created in the day that the Lord God made the 
heavens and the earth. " b Hence the book of Job 
represents God as asking Job, among other questions, 

a The learned reader will see that these pages are but an 
epitome of Bishop Pearson's statements in his " Exposition of the 
Creed." 

h Gen. ii. I. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 1 7 

"Hath the rain a Father? or who hath begotten the 
drops of dew?" a So St. James calls God "the Father 
of lights. " b And St. Paul, though implying the eter- 
nal as well as the temporal relation, "To us there is 
but one God, the Father, of whom are all things." 

A nearer approach to a realization of true paternity, 
and a higher sense in which the name Father is used, 
is when it is employed to denote God's relation to intel- 
ligent and moral beings, who, as possessed of freedom 
and intelligence, are said to be "made in the image 
of God." d For it is the true notion of paternity 
that it produces an offspring like the parent. Hence 
St. Luke, tracing back the genealogy of our Lord, 
carries it up to "Adam, who was the Son of God." e 
This was a truth of which the heathen were conscious, 
as St. Paul argued at Athens, quoting, from the Greek 
poet, the line, "For we are also His offspring." 
Hence, with the greatest propriety, in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, God is called "The Father of Spirits ;" f 
for He is a Spirit, and in creating finite Spirits, He has 
produced an offspring like Himself. So, by the prophet 
Malachi, we are taught just dealing one towards an- 
other, on the motive of a common brotherhood, en- 
forced by this argument : " Have we not all one 
Father? Hath not one God created us?" g 

God is also called a Father, because of His paternal 
care in the preservation of the beings He has created : 
"A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, 

a Job, xxxviii. 28. c I. Cor. viii. 6. e Luke, iii. 38. 

b James, i. 17. d Gen. i. 27. f Heb. xii. 9. 

z Mai. ii. 10. 



1 8 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

is God in His holy habitation, " a says the Psalmist. 
" Behold the fowls of the air," says the Saviour, " your 
heavenly Father feedeth them." b "Therefore take no 
thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we 
drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your 
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all 
these things." "Your Father knoweth what things 
ye have need of before ye ask Him." d And on this 
ground of likeness to God, in His care for our preser- 
vation, notwithstanding ingratitude, our Lord incul- 
cates the return of good for evil, thus: "Love your 
enemies, . . . that ye may be the children of 
your Father which is in Heaven; for He maketh His 
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth 
rain on the just and on the unjust. " e 

The mercy of Redemption, again, is allowed to be a 
part of the paternal relation ; hence Isaiah, in the per- 
son of the captives of Israel, addresses God thus : 
" Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be 
ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not ; Thou, 
O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, from everlast- 
ing is thy name." And the same may be our language ; 
for though the Son be the agent of Redemption, and 
therefore is called more commonly the Redeemer, yet 
it was the Fatherly love of God which planned the re- 
demption of the world ; for " God so loved the world 
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life." 

a Ps. lxviii. 5. lj Matt. vi. 26. c Matt. vi. 31, J2. 

d Matt. vi. 8. c Matt. v. 45. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 1 9 

We have a new claim to the title of Sons, and are 
enabled to call God our Father, by our Regeneration, 
— the return back, by new birth, into that state of 
Sonship, the title to which man had lost through sin. 
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
Kingdom of God," a is the word of our Saviour, which 
He reiterates more solemnly: ''Verily, verily, I say 
unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." 
Being regenerate, we are children and offspring of God, 
by partaking of the Sonship of Christ, who only is the 
true and eternal Son of God. For, "as many as re- 
ceived Him, to them gave He power to become the 
Sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. 
Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ;" b and there- 
fore God is their Father. 

Our regeneration is called also by the name of 
adoption, and therefore our teachers in the faith have 
observed that God is our Father also, if we be regen- 
erate, by the way of adoption. "Behold," says St. 
John, "what manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." c 
That love was shown in this way : " When the fulness 
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of 
a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that 
were under the law, that we might receive the adop- 
tion of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent 
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, 
Abba, Father. " d "For ye have not received the 

a John, iii. 3. c I. John, Hi. I. 

b John, i. 12, 13. d Gal. iv. 4-6. 



20 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye have received 
the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, 
Father." 4 

To crown all, God will make Himself our Father in 
yet another way, by bringing us again from the dead. 
" They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that 
world, and the Resurrection from the dead, are equal 
unto the angels, and are the children of God, being 
the children of the Resurrection." 1 ' 

We thus see that Holy Scripture attributes the title 
of Father to God, as being our Creator and Preserver 
in the Kingdom of Nature, the author of our Redemp- 
tion and Regeneration in the Kingdom of His grace, 
and the worker of our Resurrection into the Kingdom 
of His glory. The notion of a Father, therefore, be- 
longs essentially to our knowledge of God ; we cannot 
think of Him truly, except under that notion. This 
truth appears so clearly from the relation of ourselves as 
created and dependent beings to the Supreme Governor 
and Creator, that those who impugn the doctrine of the 
Trinity produce these grounds of the title as sufficient 
to justify it in its whole extent ; trusting that those who 
listen to them will accept them without inquiring for a 
sense beyond ; thinking that if they can content the 
mind with a plausible explanation, it will be apt to 
rest short of a true one. It is necessary, therefore, to 
disarm them by enumerating all the grounds for the 
title acknowledged by Holy Scripture, arising out of 
temporal relations, and then to show that there is still 
another and infinitely higher reason for the acknowl- 

a Rom. viii. 15. h Luke, xx. 35, 36. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 2 1 

edgment of God the Father in His begetting His 
eternal Son. We are brought thus to the considera- 
tion of the truth that the being a Father is eternally 
and essentially an attribute of Deity, because He is the 
eternal Father of His only-begotten Son. He is the 
Father of the created, because He is the Father of the 
uncreated ; the earthly sonship is the shadow of the 
heavenly. He is the Father, because of Himself, not 
because of us. 

I have arranged the argument thus, advisedly. In 
considering Truth, which is objectively indivisible, we 
are compelled, by the subjective conditions of thought, 
to separate one notion from another, and thus make 
logical, when there are no real divisions. I began for 
this reason, with the conception of the unity of God — 
that there is one, self-existent, Supreme Being, the first 
cause and controller of all things. But the mental 
notion, "one self-existent Supreme Being," does not 
necessarily contain the conception of Personality, 
which we must add to it, to reach the true idea of God. 
Now the Scripture helps us to the conception of God's 
Personality, by pronouncing His name, " The Father," 
in connection with the exercise of all these acts of 
creation, preservation, and redemption above enumer- 
ated. He might be a "first cause," and be imper- 
sonal; but not so a "Father." To be a Father He 
must be a person ; for all paternal attributes are per- 
sonal attributes. And conversely, to be a person He 
must be a Father; for were God not a Father, He 
would be inert, without offspring, without affection, 
without any personal attributes ; and therefore imper- 
sonal. But God never was nor could have been im- 



22 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

personal. He is, therefore, ever the Father. The 
Divine essence or Being is ever personal as God the 
Father. This is what we have next to prove from 
Holy Scripture, — that God is eternally the Father. 
We shall show also, with equal conclusiveness from 
Holy Scripture, that the same Divine Nature is also 
personal in the persons of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost. 

To guard, however, against every mistake, the reader 
is requested to fix in his mind the truth that the Divine 
Nature is simple and indivisible, and as well as infinite 
and eternal. When we say, therefore, that God is the 
Father, we mean that the whole Divine Nature, which 
is eternally self-existent in simple unity of essence, is 
ever personal in the person of the Father. The propo- 
sition is the precise logical equivalent of its converse, 
the Father is God. The same is true when we say that 
God is the Son, or the Son is God. We do not by 
this assert that there is no other person who is God 
except the Son ; but we do assert that there is naught 
of the Divine nature which the Son does not pose 
that the whole Divine Nature is in the Son, as in the 
Father. The same nature a is in the Son and in the 
Father; in the Father, originally, in the Son, by 
eternaP derivation from the Father. The Divine 
Being subsists originally, therefore, and absolutely, as 

a i.e. the self-same — numerically identical. 

b Those who accept Locke's absurd definition of eternity, can- 
not, of course, accept the doctrine of the Trinity. Hence the rise 
of Socinianism in England, together with the " philosophy" of 
Locke. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 23 

God the Father ; derivatively, as God the Son and God 
the Holy Ghost. That old scholastic realism which 
held that the Divine Nature was (as it were) a fountain 
whence were derived, or a matrix in which inhered, 
the three Personalities of the Trinity, is altogether to 
be shunned. The Father is the fountain of the 
Divinity, whence is derived the Son and the Holy 
Spirit. Hence, in the Holy Scripture, when the name 
of God is spoken without any adjunct determining it 
to another person of the Trinity, — it is generally 1 in- 
tended to refer to the Father — not to the Divine 
Nature, or to the threefold personality. The Holy 
Scripture, dealing with realities, and not with logical 
conceptions, does not distinguish between the Divine 
Nature and the Divine Person. In our thought, only, 
do we thus separate conceptions ; in the reality all is 
one. God is always self-existent, and always personal, 
that is, always a Father. But to be always a Father, 
He has always a Son, who, being ever-existent, is God, 
since there is nothing eternal but God, and who, there- 
fore, is the self-same God with the Father, though not 
the same Person. 

The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, thus being 
both in essence and in person eternally derived from 
the Father in a way in which no other being is, is for this 
reason called "the only-begotten Son of God " b — only 
begotten, that is, in this high sense, as eternally be- 
gotten, and so eternally existing. In contradistinction 
to the temporal and momentary generation by which 
we receive our being, the act by which the Only-be- 

a Generally, but not universally. b John, iii. 18. 



24 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

gotten Son of God receives His being is an eternal 
act — an act never begun and never ending, eternally 
proceeding from the infinite activity of God. a And 
this is the meaning of that well-known theological 
phrase, the " eternal generation of the Only-begotten 
Son." 

This is the doctrine which we have now to prove ; 
and it will be established from Holy Scripture, by 
showing, first, that God is called pre-eminently, and 
most frequently, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
and conversely, that our Lord is called the only Son, 
or only-begotten Son of God. Secondly, that Jesus 
Christ, the only Son of God, is God as well as man, and 
therefore the same God with the Father. Thirdly, 
that, being the same God with the Father, He is not 
the same Person, but a different and distinct person, 
subsisting distinctly from the Father. Fourthly, that 
He subsists by receiving, by eternal generation, the 
Divine Nature from the Father ; which generation is 
the foundation of the relationship of Father and Son. 



a « t Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlast- 
ing.' Micah, v. 2. So use they also [by the plural Dumber] to 
note out continuance. And so it sets out to us the continual ema- 
nation or proceeding of Him from His Father, uc u-av-.anua, the 
Apostle's word, as a 'beam of brightness,' streaming from Him 
incessantly. Never past — ' His generation' — but, as the school- 
men call it, actus commtnsuratus atemitate. For hodie genui tc 
is true of every day; yet, because it hath coexistence with many 
revolutions of time, though it be indeed in itself but one drawn 
out along, yet, according to the many age> it lasteth, it seemeth to 
multiply itself into many, and so is expressed plurally." — Bishop 
Andrewes* Sermon on tlic text. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 25 

I. God is called the Father, many times in Holy 
Scripture, with more particular relation to one Son, 
who, by way of eminence, is called the " Son of 
God," a the " only-begotten Son of God." b This re- 
lation is evidently implied in the baptismal formula : 
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son." As 
we naturally ask, "the Son of whom?" and receive 
for reply, "the Son of the Father;" so we may as 
naturally ask, "the Father of whom?" and answer, 
"the Father of the Son here mentioned." The pre- 
eminence of this Son above all others is shown by the 
appellation bestowed upon Him, "the only-begotten 
Son of God;" by the numerous passages in which the 
Father and the Son are spoken of, without any more 
particular designation, as if (in the highest sense) but 
one Father and one Son could be conceived of; and 
by the closeness of the relationship intimated in the 
phrases used, such as that the Son "is in the bosom 
of the Father," d that "the Father loveth the Son, and 
hath given all things into His hand," e that it is the 
Father's will, "that all men should honor the Son, 
even as they honor the Father, " f that by the Saviour's 
granting the answer to prayer, " the Father is glorified 
in the Son;"^ that "no man knoweth the Son, but 
the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will 
reveal Him." h 



a Luke, i. 35. 

b John, i. 14; i. 18; iii. 16; iii. 18; I. John, iv. 9. 

c II. John, 3. e John, iii. 35. s John, xiv. 13. 

d John, i. 18. f John, v. 23. h Matt. xi. 27. 

3* 



26 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

The pre-eminence of this relation above all others is 
clearly marked by our Saviour Himself, contrasting it 
with our relationship, in his address to Mary, when He 
appeared to her after His resurrection: "Go to my 
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father 
and your Father, and to my God and your God." a 
"My Father and your Father," but not my Father as 
your Father, "My God and your God," but not my 
God as your God. So the Apostles, marking the same 
pre-eminence, expressly attribute the title of Father to 
God, because of the~relation to Christ. "Blessed," 
says St. Paul, making his ascription of praise, "be 
God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort." 6 
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings 
in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath 
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, 
that we should be holy and without blame before Him 
in love ; having predestinated us unto the adoption of 
children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the 
good pleasure of His will. " c Mark how His Sonship 
is in this passage made the foundation of our adoption. 
And when the Apostle would make his most solemn 
asseveration of his truthfulness, he declares, "The God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knoweth that I 
lie not." d So St. Peter speaks of God by the same 
title, at the commencement of his first epistle : " Blessed 
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, 

* John, xx. 17. c Eph. i. 3, 4, 5. 

b II. Cor. i. 3. « II. Cor. xi. 31. 



Mystery of the Holy Tri?iity. 2 7 

according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us 
again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead." a These passages show con- 
clusively that God is called the Father, principally 
because He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Correlatively, Jesus Christ is called, by way of emi- 
nence, the Son of God, and so He is doubly identified, 
both by the way in which God is called His Father, 
and in this way with the Son, whose relation to the 
Father is seen to be, from the baptismal formula, so 
close and intimate. "These things are written," St. 
John says of His Gospel, "that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing 
ye might have life through His name." b For, " this is 
the commandment of God, that we should believe on 
the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. ' ' c Hence, the angel, 
announcing His birth to His mother, promised " that 
holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called 
the Son of God." d John the Baptist, when he saw 
heaven opened, and the Spirit descending upon Him, 
"bare record that this was the Son of God." e The 
revilers at the cross tell us what the testimony of 
Christ to Himself was: "He trusted in God," they 
said, "let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him ; 
for He said, I am the Son of God." f When the eunuch 
of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia, was baptized by Philip, 
he thus confessed his faith: "I believe that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God." 5 Saul, the converted 



a I. Peter,!. 3. c I. John, iii. 23. e John, i. 34. 

b John, xx. 31. d Luke, i. 35. ' Matt, xxvii. 43. 

e Acts, viii. 37. 



28 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

persecutor, afterwards the great Apostle, " preached 
Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God."* 
The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us: "We have a 
great high priest, who is passed into the heavens, 
Jesus, the Son of God." b And ''whosoever shall 
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth 
in him, and he in God." c 

II. Now since God is, as we have seen, the Father 
of so many children in so many ways, there must be 
a special reason for the confession upon which St. 
John, as above, predicates the communion with God. 
The faith that Jesus is the Son of God, to be made the 
ground of such communion, infers a special kind of 
Sonship, over and above all the reasons for which our 
Lord has the same right to the title which we have. 
It is not to be denied that He is called the Son of 
God, for several subordinate reasons, and in respect of 
several relations, inferior to the highest. But, admit- 
ting these, there is a reason beyond them all ; and that 
is, that Jesus Christ our Lord is a Divine Son ; that He 
is God, having the same nature with the Father, which 
is our next point to be proved. 

i. Jesus Christ is called the "Son of God," because 
of His birth into our world, which was supernatural. 
He was born a man ; born of a woman, but by no 
earthly Father. He was "conceived by the Holy 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." Such a birth gave 
not only the title of creation, but was a good ground 
of the appellation in a distinctive sense. Hence the 
Angel Gabriel announced to Mary His Mother, "That 

a Acts, ix. 20. b Heb. iv. 14. c I. Jobn, iv. 15. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. ^29 

holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called 
the Son of God. " a 

2. Our Lord assigns His commission and mission of 
the Father, as, in one respect, a reason for His name. 
When charged by the Jews with blasphemy, He did 
not care to insist before scoffers upon His Divinity, 
but replied, "Is it not written in your law, I said ye 
are gods? If He called them gods unto whom the 
word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be 
broken), say ye of Him whom the Father hath sancti- 
fied and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because 
I said, I am the Son of God?" b 

3. As we shall be the "children of God," being 
the " children of the Resurrection," so God's bringing 
Christ again from the dead is a reason for His being 
called " the Son of God." So St. Paul expounded the 
second Psalm to prophesy of the Resurrection, preach- 
ing in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia as follows : 
"We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the 
promise which was made unto the Fathers, God hath 
fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He 
hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the 
second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I be- 
gotten thee." c So in the Epistle to the Colossians, 
our Saviour is called "the first-born from the dead." d 

4. He is called the Son of God, also, with respect 
to His inheritance of the Father's riches and power 
and glory. "God . . hath spoken unto us by His 
Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things ; who, 

a St. Luke, i. 35. c Acts, xiii. 33. 

b John, x. 35, 36. d Col. i. 18. 



30 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

. . when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down 
on the right hand of the Majesty on High ; being made 
so much better than the angels, as He hath by inherit- 
ance obtained a more excellent name than they. For 
unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou 
art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee?"* 

5. Now, to use the language of Bishop Pearson, from 
whom this argument is taken ■ " The actual possession 
of His inheritance, which was our fourth title to His 
Sonship, presupposes His Resurrection, which was the 
third ; and His commission to His office, which was 
the second, presupposeth his generation of a virgin, as 
the first." "But besides these four, we must find yet 
a more peculiar ground of our Saviour's filiation, 
totally distinct from any which belongs unto the rest 
of the Sons of God, that He may be clearly and fully 
acknowledged the Only-begotten Son." Hence we 
must show that our Lord Jesus Christ was a person ex- 
isting before He was born into the world ; and that 
He so existed as God, having the same nature with the 
Father, and having received it from the Father. 

That the Son of God was, before He was born of 
the Virgin Mary, is proved by His testimony, that 
when He came into the world, He came down from 
Heaven: "I am the living bread which came down 
from Heaven. " b " I came down from Heaven, not to 
do mine own will; but the will of Him that sent me." c 
" I came forth from the Father, and am come into the 
world; again I leave the world, and go unto the 

a Heb. i. 1-5. b John, vi. 33, 51. c John, vi. 38. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 31 

Father. " a So John Baptist assigns the reason for the 
Saviour's taking precedence of himself. "He that 
cometh from above is above all : he that is of the 
earth is earthly, He that cometh from Heaven is above 
all." b " This is He of whom I said, After me cometh 
a man which is preferred before me ; for He was be- 
fore me." c And our Lord, directing the minds of the 
carnal Jews to heavenly truths of which He had been 
speaking, alludes to His future ascension thus : "What 
and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where 
He was before ?" d thus again asserting that He was in 
Heaven before He came to earth. 

This being which He had before He became a man, 
is eternal, without beginning. The creation of the 
first created thing was "the beginning," and nothing 
which had beginning existed before it. That therefore 
which was before the Creation, or which already ex- 
isted "in the beginning," had itself no beginning, 
that is to say, is eternal. Such the Scriptures repre- 
sent to be the being of Christ, the Son of God. He was 
not only before John the Baptist, as proved above, 
but before Abraham ; " Before Abraham was, I am ;" e 
not only before Abraham, but before the world ; "The 
world was made by Him," f says St. John. God " hath 
spoken unto us by His Son, by whom also He made 
the worlds, " ? says the Epistle to the Hebrews, which 
also interprets of the Son, the well-known passage from 
the io2d Psalm : " Thou Lord, in the beginning hast 

a John, xvi. 27, 28. c John, i. 30. e John, viii. 58. 

b John, iii. 31. d John, vi. 62. f John, i. 10. 

s Heb. i. 2. 



32 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are 
the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou 
shalt endure ; they all shall wax old as doth a garment, 
and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they 
shall be changed ; but Thou art the same, and Thy 
years shall not fail." a That He is before all created 
things, St. Paul expressly asserts in a passage, the full 
force of which is missed in our translation : " He is 
the image of the invisible God, first-begotten before all 
creation. b For by Him were all things created, that 
are in Heaven, and that are in earth, visible and 
invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or 
principalities or powers, all things were created by 
Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and 
by Him all things consist." And St. John, to the 
same effect, in the opening of His Gospel: "In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God. The same was in the begin- 
ning with God. All things were made by Him, and 
without Him was not anything made that was made." d 
"And the Word," it is farther stated, to identify this 
Divine eternal Being with our Lord Jesus Christ, "was 
made flesh and dwelt among us. ' ' 

The existence of our Lord before His birth as a man, 
being, as thus proved, before all time and all worlds, 
and therefore eternal, cannot be any other than Divine. 
He is eternal, and therefore He is God ; for there is no 
other eternal being except God. Moreover, it is said 
that He made the world and all things ; therefore He 

a Heb. i. 10. c Col. i. 15-17. 

b npuroTOKoc naoris xrioeug. d John, i. 1-3. 



Mystery of the Holy 7>inity. 33 

is God : for there is no Creator except God. Besides, 
in the last text cited, He is expressly called God ; and 
thus the question is set at rest without further argu- 
ment. Nor is this the only passage in which it is 
unequivocally asserted that Christ is God. God de- 
clared by the prophet Isaiah, as we have seen, against 
idolatry and Persian philosophy : "I am the first 
and I am the last, and beside me there is no God." 
But the Saviour declared Himself to be the first and 
the last when He appeared to St. John, in the Reve- 
lations : " These things saith the first and the last, 
which was dead and is alive. " a "I am Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, b 
which is, and which was, and which is to come, the 
Almighty." So the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the 
forty-fifth Psalm as addressed to the Son: " But unto 
the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and 
ever." d And so the Apostle Paul preaches: "Being in 
the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God." e Nor could it be robbery of God 
for Him to take this honor unto Himself, for " in Him 
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. " f He 
is "God manifest in the flesh, " g and His name is "Im- 
manuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us." h 
St. Thomas, being convinced of the truth of His resur- 
rection, confessed faith in His deity by exclaiming, 
" My Lord and my God." 1 And his adversaries, the 
Jews, understanding rightly His claim to be the Son of 

a Rev. ii. 8. ' d Heb. i. 8. at I. Tim. iii. 16. 

b i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ. e Phil. ii. 6. h Matt. i. 23. 

c Rev. i. 8. f Col. ii. 9. ' John, xx. 28. 

4 



34 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

God as including the assumption of Divinity, but re- 
fusing to admit that claim, objected it against Him as 
blasphemy, "because that Thou, being a man, makest 
Thyself God. " a St. John, who is called "the Divine," 
because he discoursed so much of the deity of the Lord, 
ends his first Epistle with the declaration: "We know 
that the Son of God is come, and hath given us under- 
standing, that we may know Him that is true, and we 
are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. 
This is the true God, and eternal life." b Finally, St. 
Paul enumerates among the glories of his kinsmen ac- 
cording to the flesh, that " of them, as concerning the 
flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for- 
ever. Amen." c 

This abundant proof that Christ is God is proof 
also that He is the same God with the Father; for 
since, as was proved in the first place, there is no God 
but one, Christ must be that God, or not God at all. 
But that God is shown to be God the Father ; there- 
fore Christ, the Son, is the same God with the Father. 

in. But, being the same God, He is nevertheless a 
different Person from the Father. He has the same 
Divine Nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit, 
but a different personal subsistence 11 from both. The 
very names, Father and Son, testify this so clearly that 
there would be no need to insist upon it, were it not 
that " the thing that hath been, that is it that shall be," 
and therefore the old Sabellian heresy may arise again. 
Hence it is to be noted that the difference of Persons 



a John, x. 33. « Rom. ix. 5. 

b I. John, v. 20. d Gr. v^oaraatq. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 35 

in the Divine Trinity was manifested at the baptism of 
Jesus: "The Heavens were opened unto Him," it is 
said, "and He saw the Spirit of God descending like 
a dove, and lighting upon Him ; and lo, a voice from 
Heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased. " a Here the voice was the voice of 
the Father ; He upon whom the Spirit descended was 
the Son ; and the descending Spirit was the Holy 
Ghost. He who gave, and He who received, and He 
who was given, are clearly distinguished. The personal 
distinction thus demonstrated was carefully preserved 
by our Saviour, when speaking of Himself and His 
Father : "My Father is greater than I." "I came 
forth from the Father and am come unto the world, 
again I leave the world, and go unto the Father." 
"As the Father gave me commandment, even so I 
do." "Ye believe in God [i.e. the Father], believe 
also in Me." " I am the true vine, and my Father is 
the husbandman." " Father, the hour is come, glorify 
Thy Son, that Thy Son may also glorify Thee." So in 
numberless passages the personal distinction is clearly 
implied, proving that while the nature is the same the 
personal subsistence is other. 

iv. It is as clear also, from Holy Scripture, that 
the Son, who is God eternally with the Father, re- 
ceives His Divine Being from the Father, which is the 
last point to be proved. It is evident from the mutual 
relations of the terms Father and Son ; for the name 
"the Son," in its proper acceptation, rests upon deri- 
vation of being from the parent ; and that name be- 

a Matt. iii. 16, 17. 



36 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

longed to our Lord Jesus Christ before He was born 
into the world ; and therefore it infers the derivation 
of His Divine Being from His Father. Thus, applying 
' the name to His Divinity, the Epistle to the Hebrews 
informs us that "God hath spoken unto us by His Son, 
by whom [that is, by which Son] He made the worlds;"* 
whence it is to be concluded that the Person spoken of 
as a Son, was a Son before " the worlds were made," 
and therefore a fo?'tiori before he was born as a human 
Son. It has been before noticed that He is called 
"the only-begotten Son," because of His Divine Being 
which He alone has of all the Sons of God. He is 
therefore a "begotten Son," that is, a Son who de- 
rives His being from His Father — an "only-begotten 
Son," as He alone derives by His generation a Divine 
Being from His Father. "No man hath seen God at 
any time," says St. John, "the only-begotten Son, 
which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him ;" b which passage can only be interpreted of the 
Divine Nature of our Lord. And reason, of itself, 
might conclude this generation ; for, as there is but one 
Divine Nature, which is infinite, and at the same time 
one and indivisible, and as that Divine Nature is origi- 
nally in the Father, the Son could not have being at 
all unless He had received that being from the Father. 
The Divine Essence could not subsist in two persons 
were not one derived from the other. Hence our 
Saviour testifies that what He is He has received from 
the Father: "All things whatsoever the Father hath 
are mine." "As the Father hath life in Himself, so 

a Heb. i. 2. b John, iii. 18. c John, xiv. 15. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 37 

hath He given to the Son, to have life in Himself. " a 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing 
of Himself but what He seeth the Father do." b "I 
know Him, for I am from Him." c " I and the Father 
are one." d " If I do not the works of my Father, be- 
lieve me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, 
believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that 
the Father is in Me, and I in Him." e The derivation 
asserted in these passages the Epistle to the Hebrews 
represents by a happy figure, "Who being the bright- 
ness of the Father's glory, and the express image of 
His person," etc. — coming forth from the Father, that 
is, as the ray from the sun, and answering to the 
Father's likeness as the wax to the seal by which it is 
impressed. 

We thus at length arrive at the proposition laid down 
at the beginning of this somewhat complicated argu- 
ment, having proved fully by it that God is always a 
Father — the Eternal Father of an Eternal Son. Col- 
laterally the doctrine respecting the Son has also been 
brought out, part by part, and clearly shown by Scrip- 
ture teaching. 

III. The truth concerning the Holy Spirit, the 
third Person of the blessed Trinity, is easy of recep- 
tion when we believe in the Son. All that we need is 
Scripture testimony to the facts ; and the teaching of 
the sacred volume will be clear if we show that the 
Holy Spirit is God, — that the attributes which are 
peculiar to God alone are assigned to Him, — whence 



1 John, v. 26. b John, v. 19. c John, vii. 29. 

d John, x. 30. e John, x. 37, 38. 

4* 



38 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

we infer that He is God ; that He is a person distinct 
from the Father and the Son ; and that He receives 
His being by proceeding from the Father and the Son. 
I. The Holy Scriptures, understood in their plain 
and natural sense, call the Holy Spirit God, and assign 
to Him attributes which belong to God alone. As we 
infer the Son to be God, because "by Him God [the 
Father] made the worlds," so we understand the Holy 
Spirit to be God, because the same operation of Crea- 
tion is attributed to Him in the words, "By His Spirit 
He hath garnished the Heavens." For if the Son were 
existent before the world, as He must have been if God 
made the world by Him, so also the Spirit must have 
been pre-existent, and co-operative in the Creation, 
and therefore uncreated, and therefore God. So the 
Angel Gabriel promised that the Son of Mary should 
be called the Son of God, because He was conceived 
by the Holy Ghost. "The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee ; therefore that holy thing which shall be 
born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Not as 
if the Holy Ghost were the Father of our Lord accord- 
ing to the flesh, but that, according to the mystery of 
the Triune activity, the Holy Spirit is the immediate 
agent of all operations of the Father. It is to be con- 
cluded, also, that He is God, because the bodies of 
those to whom He is given as the Indwelling Spirit are 
said to be " temples," since temples are exclusively the 
habitations of Deity: " What ! know ye not that your 
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth 
in you?" Omniscience is one of His attributes : "The 
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 39 

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the 
spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things of 
God knoweth no one, a but the Spirit of God." b Were 
He not God, no sin could be committed against Him 
so fearful as to preclude forgiveness; yet our Saviour 
says: "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be for- 
given unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whoso- 
ever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall 
be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh a word 
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world, neither in the world to come." 

The baptismal formula is an incontrovertible argu- 
ment for the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. For as we 
are baptized in the name of the Father, who is God, 
and in the name of the Son, because He is God, so we 
are baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost, because 
He also is God. In the benediction, also, the union 
of His name with that of the Father and that of the 
Son is an argument of the same force: "The grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the 
fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. 
Amen." d 

The Holy Ghost, moreover, is expressly called Lord 
and God: "Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where 
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 6 When 
Ananias kept back part of the price of his land, falsely 
pretending that he had brought the whole as a donation 
to the church, St. Peter rebuked him with the words : 



1 ovSeig. b I. Cor. ii. 10, 11. c Matt. xii. 31, 32. 

d II. Cor. xiii. 14. e II. Cor. iii. 17. 



40 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

" Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy 
Ghost? . . . Thou hast not lied unto men, but 
unto God." a 

Now, since the Holy Ghost is, according to Holy 
Scripture, possessed of the attributes which belong 
only to God, is joined in the baptismal formula with 
the Father and the Son, each of whom has been 
proved to be God, and moreover is in the Scripture 
expressly called Lord and God, it is therefore to be 
concluded that that Blessed Spirit is God — the same 
God with the Father and the Son. 

2. But the Holy Ghost is a Person distinct from the 
Father and the Son. He performs actions towards the 
Father and the Son which fully distinguish Him from 
them. He is distinguished from the Father, because 
" He maketh intercession for the saints, according to 
the will of God." b That is, He makes intercession to 
the Father; but the Father, it would never be said, 
makes intercession to Himself; as it must be said 
if the Father and the Holy Ghost were the same per- 
son. He comes in obedience to the mission of the 
Son: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if 
I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ; 
but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." c But the 
Scripture would not represent our Lord as saying that 
He would send Himself, as it must if the Spirit and the 
Son were the same person ; much less when He had just 
declared that He was about to depart, and that He who 
was to be sent would come in His stead. "Through 
the Son," says St. Paul, distinguishing the Persons, 

a Acts, v. 3, 4. b Rom. viii. 27. c John, xvi. 7. 



Mystery of the Holy Trinity. 41 

"we have access by one Spirit to the Father." And 
so in the benediction, "The grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and the love of God [the Father], and the fel- 
lowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen." 

3. The Holy Spirit receives His Divine Being from 
the Father and the Son. For, as the Son receives the 
Divine Nature from the Father, or He could not be at 
all, so the Holy Spirit could not be, unless He received 
it from the Father and the Son. This truth is inti- 
mated by His being named, "the Spirit of God," 
"the Spirit of the Father," "the Spirit of the Son," 
"the Spirit of Christ." Of His being called the 
Spirit of God, examples are so numerous that it will 
not need to cite them ; it is sufficient to open the 
Bible at the first chapter of Genesis, where we read, 
"The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters." He is called the "Spirit of the Father" by 
our Lord, encouraging the disciples to bear witness 
boldly before governors and kings : " It is not ye that 
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in 
you." a " Because we are sons," says St. Paul, "God 
hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. " b 
" Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is 
none of His." The procession of the Spirit from the 
Father is asserted in express terms: "He proceedeth 
from the Father." And in equivalent words from the 
Son, "He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto 
you." d 

The Scripture teaching respecting the Holy Trinity 

a Matt. x. 20. c John, xvi. 26. 

b Gal. iv. 6. d John, xvi. 14. 



42 Threefold Grace of the Iloly Trinity. 

is thus shown to be full and clear. The doctrine 
taught is thus concisely summed up in the Athanasian 
creed: "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the 
Holy Ghost is God. And yet there are not three Gods 
but one God." The object of the present volume is 
to inquire into the practical relation of this doctrine 
with our religious life, through the grace given by each 
Person to the Christian, in applying to him, the Re- 
demption and salvation of the Gospel. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE GRACE OF GOD THE FATHER. 

'T^HE truth which God has revealed respecting Him- 
self is not a speculative, but a regulative truth. 
We have not faculties for speculation upon the nature 
of God. The proper exercise of thought in religion 
is to purify our understanding of the revealed Word 
from errors of misapprehension, to accept the truth in 
its transcendent mystery, and to carry it into our lives, 
by making it the source of all our comfort and the 
sanction of all our duty. We miss of the value of the 
Revelation altogether, unless we receive it as intended 
to govern our religious life. Our knowledge of God is 
not knowledge of Him in Himself, apart from us ; but 
knowledge of Him in relation to us. Our faith in the 
Holy Trinity is the highest reach of thought, above 
which it cannot ascend into a philosophy of the Abso- 
lute, such as has been vainly imagined possible ; it is 
rather the starting-point from which reason may de- 
scend to the world and to ourselves. When, therefore, 
we attempt to comprehend the mystery of God's being 
as he is in Himself, we fail ; but when we set ourselves 
at our proper business — to understand the relation of 
the Ever-blessed Trinity to the world and to mankind 
— the truth will be found to arrange itself in intelligible 

(43) 



44 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

conceptions, to be coherent, systematic, and, to careful 
reflection, easily understood. 

A merely speculative truth, unnecessary to Christian 
practice, would be devoid of influence in life, and 
therefore useless. Much as has been written concern- 
ing the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake only, the 
practical sense of the world has continually demanded 
that the result of science should be the perfection of 
art. The spirit of inquiry may be supreme, as such, in 
individuals, in order that they may devote themselves 
untiringly to investigations of which the practical value 
is not foreseen ; but the world has no honor for the in- 
quirer, until it sees that something can be done by 
means of his discoveries. All science seeks an appli- 
cation ; even the most abstract metaphysical inquirers 
aim at an ultimate influence upon conduct, either by 
laying down principles of morals or by guiding intel- 
lectual activity. Hence, in a matter which concerns 
every one as closely as religion, truth is altogether 
regulative ; the faith is given to enter immediately into 
the life of man and become the supreme governing 
principle of his conduct, without which he cannot shun 
evil and attain good. 

What we want to know and understand is, what God 
is to us, what He does to us, and what He requires 
from us ; and this, of course, implies some knowledge 
of what God is in Himself; but it also implies that that 
knowledge, so far as comprehensible by us, is suffi- 
ciently comprehended in the relations to us, of which 
it is the foundation. The unity of God is sufficiently 
revealed in the unity of His Law, which is the same 
law, whether viewed as given by the Father, or pub- 



The Grace of God the Father. 45 

lished by the Son, or written in our hearts by the Holy 
Spirit. The difference of Persons is sufficiently re- 
vealed in the difference of operations of the Three in 
our Redemption — the Father justifying and adopting, 
the Son redeeming, the Holy Spirit sanctifying. 

Conversely, without the knowledge of God thus 
given, we cannot understand our position, or our 
hopes, or our duty in the world ; but with it we have 
all that is practical, and, therefore, all that is neces- 
sary. Hence the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds, 
the Church's concise but systematic expositions' of the 
truth which it has learned from God's revelation of 
Himself, have been, the one for eighteen hundred, the 
other for fifteen hundred years, allowed to be the sum 
of the fundamental truths of Christianity, have been 
found by experience sufficient to regulate conduct and 
to preserve from deadly error, and are rightly required 
to be believed, on pain of exclusion from her body 
and from participation in her hopes. 

The absolute necessity of Christian faith in God the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost consists in this, 
that God requires it; and though we can give no other 
certain reason (since we cannot affirm that God could 
not save us without the exercise of faith on our part), 
yet there are reasons which show us the fitness and, to a 
certain extent, the necessity of this dispensation. One 
such reason is thus stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews : 
"Without faith it is impossible to please God; for he 
that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that 
He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him !" a 

a Heb. xi. 6. 

5 



46 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Following the example of the Apostle, we may assign 
such others as present themselves — as thus : There is a 
relation of each Person -to us, and an operation of each 
Person towards us, which it is every way expedient we 
should know, that we may willingly respond to it ; and 
there is a duty required from us towards each Person, 
which it is certainly necessary we should understand in 
order to be able to perform it ; and the knowledge and 
understanding of these relations, operations, and re- 
quired duties implies, as a condition, faith in the Per- 
sons who are their source and object. The work of 
Redemption is a complex operation of the Three Di- 
vine Persons, in which each bears His own distinctive 
part. There is an operation of the Father, an opera- 
tion of the Son distinct from that of the Father, and 
an operation of the Holy Ghost distinct from those of 
the Father and the Son. The knowledge that these 
operations are effectually performed in us to our salva- 
tion gives us the only well-grounded comfort and 
Christian joy; since it only can relieve us from the 
danger of self-deception and false security, and put to 
flight the doubts of an unsettled heart. 

Were this all it were surely enough to make the be- 
liever "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered 
to the saints;" but it becomes vastly more important 
to have a right faith, when duties are based upon it, 
without the due performance of which we are not in 
the state of salvation, and without which God will not 
give us the full benefits of His grace. A living, justi- 
fying faith, the Apostle teaches us, is a " faith which 
worketh by love;" it is a faith manifested in obedi- 
ence. And therefore faith in the Holy Trinity stands 



The Grace of God the Father. 47 

in the closest connection with our spiritual life. For 
the influences of Divine grace are partly given before, 
and partly follow after, our doing what is required of 
us. Moulding us beforehand to the will of God, they 
yet depend on our faithful obedience to become com- 
plete in effect, — prevenient grace not availing towards 
final salvation, unless we believe and obey. Faith and 
obedience are the outward branching and fructifying of 
the spiritual life of the Christian of which the root is 
grace — itself a principle not perceivable, but becoming 
visible and conscious to the possessor by projecting 
itself in thought and action ; the form of thought 
being faith, and the form of action, obedience. In 
their root, therefore, faith and obedience are the same, 
— the answer of the soul to the Divine operations, and 
the measure of the degree in which we have profited by 
the grace given us ; besides, they exert a reflex action 
upon the life from which they spring, strengthening 
and perfecting it. Now, though true obedience is that 
which is rendered unhesitatingly to the positive com- 
mands and teachings of God, because they are His 
commands and teachings, without any questionings as 
to the reasonings for them, yet it needs to be assured 
that the commands of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost are all alike the commands of God, and that the 
duty which springs from our relation to each of those 
three persons is alike our duty towards God. Hence 
the faith is necessary to this end, and we are helped to 
obey more cheerfully and with greater satisfaction 
when we can discover in the truths it delivers the rea- 
sons and grounds of command and duty. 

And lastly, the necessity of this faith must be still 



48 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

more apparent in the fact that it is made the condition 
of our receiving the chief benefits of the Gospel by 
opening our souls to them, in conscious understanding 
of what we are to receive, of the manner of obtaining, 
and of the meritorious cause whose virtue we must 
plead with the Father; thus throwing out other and 
contrary thoughts, and the feelings and intentions 
which would make grace useless if it were given. For 
all these reasons — right acceptance of, and co-operation 
with, the gift of salvation, true comfort and hope in the 
gospel, and right obedience to the commands of God 
— the faith in the Holy Trinity may be seen to be the 
foundation upon which all who profess and call them- 
selves Christians must build the edifice of their re- 
ligious life. 

The purpose of this volume is to inquire into the 
operations of the Blessed Trinity towards and upon 
man, in regenerating and sanctifying him. For these 
operations, manifold and varied as they are, a name 
has been found comprehensive enough to include them 
all — the word grace. The grace of God is the whole 
work of God in redeeming the world. In the present 
chapter we consider the grace of God the Father 
Almighty. 

The word grace in Holy Scripture has three general 
significations : first, it means the favor, love, mercy, 
kindness, or benevolence of God, the Divine affection 
of God towards us; a secondly, the spiritual gifts, what- 
soever they be, imparted to our souls by God through 

a Rom. iii. 24, etc. 



The Grace of God the Father. 49 

His favor and love; a and thirdly, in a sense admitting 
the plural number, the effect produced in us by the gift 
of Divine grace, b as the grace of humility, the grace of 
charity, etc. 

In order to understand what is the grace of God the 
Father towards us, some consideration is necessary of 
the relation in which He stands to the whole creation 
at large, to mankind as originally created upright, 
and, lastly, to mankind as fallen and redeemed. And 
since the Church's understanding of Scripture teaching 
respecting the Creation is (according to the formula of 
Hooker), c that " all things are from the Father, by the 
Son, through the Spirit," something more must be 
said, in order to understand this concerning the attri- 
butes exercised in the Creation of the world, and the 
Redemption of mankind, as related to the action of 
the three persons. 

The Church, looking upon the Creed as a regulative 
truth, teaches us, in her catechism, this answer to the 
question, " What dost thou chiefly learn in these arti- 
cles of thy belief?" " First, I learn to believe in God 
the Father, who hath made me and all the world ; 
secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and 
all mankind ; thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who 
sanctifieth me, and all the people of God." The three 
titles, then, which the Church gives to the three per- 
sons of the Holy Trinity are, God the Father, the 
Creator ; God the Son, the Redeemer ; God the Holy 
Ghost, the Sanctifier. These titles represent to us, as 
the subordination of persons, so also the subordination 

a Eph. iv. 7. b II. Cor. viii. 7. c B. i. c. 2. 

5* 



50 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

of attributes in the Godhead. They tell us that the 
attribute specially exercised in the act of Creation, is 
first in order ; that the special attribute which governs 
the work of redemption is second ; and that that which 
carries on the work of sanctification is third. These 
are, Power, the creative attribute ; Wisdom, the re- 
deeming attribute ; Love, the sanctifying attribute. 
All these attributes belong to each of the three persons 
of the Blessed Trinity; for it is of the essence of a 
person (so far as we are able to conceive ; and God, 
so far as revealed, is revealed according to our concep- 
tions, and is unrevealed, so far as He transcends them) 
that He should possess power or will, and also wisdom 
or. intelligence, and also love or affection. The dis- 
tinction of persons to us in the unity of essence, con- 
sists in the manifestation of each attribute in a different 
person. The characteristic attribute of God the Father, 
and the source of both the others, is His glorious and 
infinite power, which, by its own self-determinations, is 
the origin of all that Wisdom beholds or Love delights 
in. The Son is distinguished from the Father because 
His power, though infinite and eternal as the Father's, 
is not self-determinant, but subordinant to that Wisdom 
which is the full beholding of the glory and mind of the 
Father. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but 
what He seeth the Father do." a Hence the name 
given by St. John is, "the Word" or "Wisdom" of 
God ; for the first eternal energy of the Father's power 
has for its result eternal, infinite Wisdom. The Holy 
Spirit, so we are taught by our Fathers in the faith, as 

a John, v. 19. 



The Grace of God the Father. 51 

the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, has for His 
chief attribute, infinite, eternal Love — for what can be 
the further outflow of that infinite essence, which is 
self-developed into infinite power and infinite wisdom, 
but infinite goodness — that is, infinite love? 

These, then, in the Catholic theology, are the dis- 
tinguishing attributes of the three Persons, as standing 
respectively first in the order of their perfections. But 
each Person, by reason of their co-essential equality, 
has all the attributes in common with the other two, 
only in a different order ; which difference of order 
guides them in their operations. The Father, as the 
source of all being, has Power first, and, from that, 
Wisdom, which is in Him self-derived, and Love, 
which is complete in Himself. The Son has first, 
Wisdom, from the Father, and from Him also Power 
and also Love. The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the 
Father and the Son, has Love, first, and also Wisdom 
and also Power ; for all these attributes are essential to 
each Person, as personally subsisting. Thus, obtaining 
their doctrine from Holy Scripture and a sanctified 
philosophy, the Fathers of the Church, describing the 
Persons of the Trinity by their chief attributes, repre- 
sent the Father as the Supreme Power, the Almighty; 
the Son as the Divine Word or Wisdom (for the Greek 
word a used by St. John means both); and the Holy 
Ghost as the Divine Love. Hence, bringing these 
attributes into operation, God the Father is, by His 
Power, the Creator ; God the Son is, by His Wisdom, 
the Redeemer ; God the Holy Ghost is, by His Love, 

a 6 /loyof. 



5 2 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the Sanctifier. That is, all those operations of the 
Godhead in which Power is immediately subordinate 
to Love, are operations of the Holy Ghost ; all those 
in which Power is immediately subordinate to Wisdom, 
are operations of the Son ; all those in which Power is 
originant of that which to love, is to be good, and 
which to know is to be wise, are operations of God the 
Father. This being true, it may be understood how 
the Creation is "of the Father, by the Son, through 
the Spirit." As receiving being it is "of the Father;" 
as arranged by manifold operations of wisdom, it was 
so wisely constituted by the power of the Son, working 
under the wisdom common to the Father and the Son ; 
as made "very good," it was wrought through the 
Spirit, under that Love, which, with Wisdom and 
Power, the Spirit is, in common with the Father and 
the Son. 

It may, however, at first sight, seem hard to receive, 
that Power is the highest attribute of the Godhead. 
That this is true we have inferred from the first article 
of the Creed : "I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of Heaven and Earth." Still, when we look 
abroad on the world, and ask ourselves, Whence came 
all its order and beauty and harmony? it is not un- 
natural, that the further question should arise, Is 
Power, really, the chief attribute? Must not Wisdom 
guide and rule Power, and Love guide and rule Wisdom ? 
Are not Love and Wisdom, then, predominant over 
Power? The true answer to this is, that in the unity of 
the Divine Nature, Power and Wisdom and Love are 
co-equal, co-inclusive, a and co-eternal, and therefore 

a efi~t(HXUp7]TOC, 



The Grace of God the Father. 53 

inseparable. But we are now considering them as 
coming forth into activity, as relative to the creation 
of the world ; a and it is evident that temporal creation 
depended on the enactment of eternal, unchangeable 
law. In reply to these questions, then, we ask another : 
What is there for Wisdom to behold, or Love to delight 
in until the Infinite Will has determined in its own 
unity and perfection the harmonies of His own eternal 
law ? The earth and the heavens have their harmonies, 
and the universe runs round its appointed cycle, in 
obedience to eternal and immutable laws, of which all 
our science is the study. In thinking upon the Crea- 
tion, therefore, we have to consider, not only the being 
of the world, but the being of the law that governs it. 
What are these laws which we call eternal and neces- 
sary ? Do they exist without the enactment of God ? 
Are there other eternally existing beings besides God ? 
for, if eternal laws be eternally self-existent, they must 
be existences other than God, and independent of 
Him. Or are they not rather the determinations of His 
eternal will — the enactments of His Infinite Power? 
Clearly, there is nothing existing from all eternity but 
God ; and therefore these eternal, immutable, necessary 
laws, which govern God's works, must be themselves 
enactments of God's infinite, unchangeable, eternal 
will. Without the infinite Almighty Power of God 
there could be no such thing as wisdom, no such thing 
as love j for wisdom is the knowledge of God's eternal 
laws, and love is the acceptance of, and delight in, 
their perfections. Infinite, Almighty, perfect will and 

a TzpocpopiKog, 



54 Threefold Grace of the Jloiy Trinity. 

power stand first in the Godhead ; and the proper 
name of God the Father is that in the Creed, "I 
believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 
and earth." 

Nor does the supremacy of this infinite Power of 
God in any way suggest the idea of capriciousness, as 
being governed by no law derived from any other at- 
tribute. It is governed by God's own essence, which 
is perfect unity, and therefore cannot but be at unity 
and harmony with itself. " The Being of God," says 
Hooker, "is a kind of law to His working." The 
power of God possesses the perfections of His being ; 
and because it is perfect, one, unchangeable, and 
eternally active, from it springs eternally, His wisdom 
and His love ; and thus from His Power and Wisdom 
and Love the Creation receives its being — its law and 
order and glory. 

Here, then, is the scriptural representation of our 
relation to God the Father. God is the God of law. 
He ordained the universal law of all things. His one- 
ness makes that law a harmonious, perfect, just, upright, 
all-holy law. We have no law but that which God has 
given. We move and breathe, we live and die, under 
His enactments. Nor is there any other origin of that 
law which prescribes our duty. God has not only given, 
but published, the law under which we are to act. He 
demands obedience. He is our Governor, and we can 
plead no allowance for disobedience to His commands. 
As an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God, He is a 
just and holy God ; and as such He cannot overlook un- 
holiness and disobedience. Our relation to God the 
Father is that of children and subjects. The debt 



The Grace of God the Father. 55 

which we owe to Him — worship, adoration, humility, 
whatever it be — is all comprehended in the two words, 
faith and obedience. 

This, then, is the first relation of man towards God, 
partaking of His love, and therefore held to obedience 
to His law. Man Avas originally created capable of 
perfect obedience ; and if he had always rendered it, 
his relation to his Creator would not have been com- 
plicated with the dark and awful fact of the Fall, nor 
with the wonderful mystery of Redemption. It would 
have been the perfect love of a Father, governing His 
children, and of children rendering willing obedience 
to their Father in Heaven. Such will be the relation of 
the Redeemed to God, in the eternal world, after the 
Resurrection. The history of fallen man moves be- 
tween the obedience of Eden and the obedience of 
Heaven ; and the present operation of grace belongs to 
the period included within these bounds, beginning 
with the Fall, and ending with the Resurrection. But 
in man's first estate the grace of God was simply love 
and favor towards His child ; and its result was all the 
blessings, whatsoever they were, which could be be- 
stowed upon Adam to make him perfect in happiness. 

The fact of the Fall, therefore, has a direct bearing 
upon the doctrine of grace ; and its consideration leads 
us to inquire more particularly into the nature of the 
law given to Adam, and the nature of the act by which 
he fell. 

The law of God given to the perfect man was three- 
fold, mirroring thereby the threefold personal attri- 
butes of the Deity. First, the law of nature, or natural 
affection ; secondly, the law of reason ; thirdly, the law 



56 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

of positive command, or conscience, — the first, govern- 
ing man according to his constitution and being ; the 
second, governing him in his occupations in the world ; 
the third, governing him in his closer relation to God 
as a responsible and spiritual being. 

By the law of nature, I understand the necessary im- 
pulses inherent in the original constitution of beings 
of whatever kind, which urge to physical, involuntary, 
instinctive, or emotional a action. Such is the law by 
which planets revolve around the sun ; that by which 
the relations of inanimate things are established ; by 
which geological changes take place, by which sub- 
stances enter into chemical combinations, by which 
planets grow according to their kinds, by which animals 
seek their food, and by which their life is developed, 
preserved, and propagated. In this, its comprehensive 
sense, the law of nature includes, not only such rela- 
tions as govern inanimate beings, and animated beings 
simply as organized bodies, but also such as govern 
animated beings in those acts which are not purely acts 
of a proper will, working under reason towards a pur- 
pose, or consciously obeying a command, — that is, 
those acts which animated beings perform by impulse 
or instinct of nature rather than by rational volition. 
As man is a natural being, and was so in Paradise, he 
was there governed as he is now, by a law of nature. 
He had his place on the earth by the law of gravita- 
tion; his organization was subject to the laws and con- 
ditions of animal life; the involuntary movements of 

a I use this word to designate action prompted by the natural 
emotions or passions of animate beings. 



The Grace of God the Father. 57 

the heart and lungs were governed in him as in lower 
animals by the law of nature. And so, also, his sinless 
instincts, desires, appetites, and affections furnished 
him a law of nature to guide his more common and 
necessary actions. 

In the highest generalization, it will not be very far 
out of the way to define the law of nature as the law of 
the attraction of beings towards, or their repulsion 
from each other, according to the natures given them 
by God. Thus, with respect to man ; his place upon 
the earth is secured by the attraction of gravitation ; 
his growth is effected by the attraction of necessary nu- 
triment from the food digested to the various parts of 
the body ; his food is selected by its attractiveness to 
the appetite ; his likes and dislikes, his passions and 
desires, are simply attractions and repulsions. The law 
of attraction rises higher than the control of merely 
physical movements, and in some degree enters into 
the moral sphere, into combination with the under- 
standing and the will. Man has appetites, desires, sen- 
timents, emotions, instincts, affections, under which he 
acts in part involuntarily, in part consciously ; and by 
these, so far as they influence him rightly, the law of 
nature is proclaimed. His emotional and instinctive 
faculties were given him for wise and good purposes ; 
and though now (like the nobler faculties) perverted 
by the fall, they had .place in the perfection of Para- 
dise, and were there the expression of laws of action, 
which were consciously obeyed. Natural law, in this 
sense, stood between merely physical natural law and 
the law of reason, differing from the one, in that its 
obedience is unconscious and altogether involuntary ; 



58 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

and from the other, in that the will is permissive rather 
than directive. The instincts, in a perfect state, would 
tend to self-preservation, and the affections and senti- 
ments would govern the relations of society, without 
the need of being informed by any processes of rea- 
soning or any revealed law, the golden rule being 
" written on the heart." They would thus be natural 
teachers of the duties men owe to each other in society, 
and perhaps of the duties we owe to God. It pleased 
God not to leave society to the cold impulses of mere 
rational conclusions in respect of these things ; but to 
implant in our nature those social principles in accord- 
ance with which even now, fallen as we are, society 
shapes itself and coheres together, and which, were we 
as perfect as Adam was made, would of themselves be 
a perfect law of social action and human morality. 

That system of faculties which proclaims the law of 
nature is called, in Holy Scripture, the heart. The 
law of the heart, if the heart were perfect, would be, 
under the present constitution of society, the ten com- 
mandments ; nor can that be a right heart whose de- 
terminations, claiming authority under color of being 
natural feelings, differ from the commandments. We 
are, at the present day, too much inclined to take our 
hearts and feelings for our guides, not reflecting that 
they are fallen, as they are, and need to be taught by 
Holy Scripture and cleansed by Divine grace, to give 
us right impulses and a right obedience to God. But 
in Paradise, the nature of Adam being perfect, his 
heart proclaimed truly God's law of nature ; and that 
law being in principle the ten commandments, so far 
as they applied to a possible society in that perfect 



The Grace of God the Father. 59 

state, this is the reason, I suppose, that we do not read 
df any moral law given to Adam by express revelation. 

The law of nature, as the bond of society and the 
principle of attraction by which all things, animate or 
inanimate, seek what is best for them, and (so to 
speak) love each other, is correspondent to the Divine 
love ; and since that is the third in the order of the 
Divine attributes, this law acknowledges in man, as a 
spiritual being ordained to the highest knowledge of 
God, a twofold higher law, — that of wisdom or reason, 
and that of command or conscience. 

Under the law of reason, instead of emotion, or in- 
stinct, or appetite, or affection, the will substitutes pur- 
pose as its principle of action. It sets before itself ends 
to be attained other than the gratification of present 
feelings ; it governs our calling and occupation in this 
life ; it puts us in the way of discovering means and 
ways of action ; it enables us to decide whether our 
purposes are wise, and whether our means are adapted 
to the end in view. For example, legislation in our 
present state is, or ought to be, an exercise of reason, 
seeking means to preserve society from disruption, 
since nature is no longer sufficient. The laws of a 
state are laws of human reason ; and so is every rule 
which implies a purpose consciously adopted, and the 
choice of means to carry it into effect. Like the 
heart, the reason is now fallen, and therefore its deter- 
minations are neither the wisest nor the best ; but in 
Paradise it was, in its sphere, a perfect guide, ruling 
Adam in his occupation. We read that "the Lord 
God put the man into the garden of Eden to dress it 
and to keep it." That means, He gave him an occu- 



6o Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

pation to which his mere instincts and emotions did 
not urge him. Purpose not resting upon impulse is 
supposed in this, and means inferred. The discovery 
and adaptation of means to purposes, and the adoption 
of rules of action, were exercises of reason, leading 
further to the knowledge of laws and principles, and 
so to an insight into the works and ways of God. The 
law of Reason thus represents in man that wisdom 
which is the second of the attributes of God. 

It is true, therefore, that man, in his perfection, was 
created to be governed by the law of reason as well as 
by the law of nature ; but they have a very false idea 
of human nature, and of our position under God's 
government, who suppose that this is all which even 
the perfect man must obey, or that nothing more is 
necessary to bring him into full communion with God. 
Adam obeyed the law of nature almost unconsciously 
— by instinct, as it were ; he obeyed the law of reason 
by reflection upon the ends to be attained and the 
means to attain them ; but there needed a positive 
command, to which neither instinct pointed nor reason 
reached, to try his faith, his obedience, and his filial 
love. The highest spiritual qualities — faith, love, 
fidelity — could find expression only in obedience to a 
positive revealed command. Hence, the laws of rea- 
son and of nature being presupposed, we are told that 
God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of 
the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of 
it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
surely die." This law of positive command repre- 
sented, in the sphere of human activity, that primor- 



The Grace of God the Father. 6r 

dial, constitutive will which is the first of the Divine 
attributes. 

We are told that disobedience to the command was 
the cause of the fall. To see, then, how obedience to 
a law of which we do not see the reason, ennobles, and 
how disobedience debases a moral being, even while 
obeying the laws of nature and reason, and so to real- 
ize something of a true philosophy of human nature 
and its obligations, let us contrast this account of the 
fall with one of the many ways in which the existence 
of evil is explained. 

It is said, for example, that evil is necessary in the 
world as subordinate to the purposes of good, — that the 
good finds opportunity to develop itself in the work of 
restoration only because evil is at work marring all 
things. Human nature is thought to develop in ac- 
cordance with the necessity of evil. It is at first un- 
consciously innocent, ignorant of right and wrong, 
and, prior to experience, without a rule of judgment. 
It must, therefore, fall into evil, and thus a twofold 
effect is obtained, — the evil of one furnishes the oppor- 
tunity for the good of another ; and one's own experi- 
ence leads him finally to reject the evil altogether and 
to choose the good. The education of humanity, in 
this view, consists in setting before it the evil and its 
consequences, that it may taste their misery and so 
choose the happiness of the good. Each person must 
learn by his own experience to make the choice for 
himself; and therefore the necessity of an experience 
of evil was inherent in human nature ; and there has 
never been a fall ; and no blame attaches on account 
of sin, since it is only an unavoidable misfortune. 
6* 



62 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

The various propositions of this theory are argued 
somewhat after the following manner: 

Why, it is asked, does God permit the whirling tor- 
nado to sweep over, or the rumbling earthquake to 
tremble beneath a town, and cripple man or bury his 
home in devastation, or crush in its ruins the partner 
or the child? We bow in silence at the inscrutable 
counsels of our Creator, and confess that He has done 
His will. The afflicted and the bereaved appeal to our 
sympathies, and afford us opportunity for the exercise 
of virtue in acknowledgment of the brotherhood of 
humanity. With this admission, the argument is taken 
up again, and we are asked, "Is not moral evil — man's 
sin against his fellow — ordained for the purpose of 
developing otherwise hidden virtue? Is not the aggre- 
gate of human action grander and nobler for the virtue 
of the many developed by the sin of the few ? How 
much of our sympathy is excited, and how many 
mighty schemes of benevolence are carried on, it is 
argued, to remove the misery of the world, which has 
its roots in antecedent sin ! Is not the development of 
this virtue, and the happiness occasioned thereby, 
more than the evil which called it forth ? How nobly, 
for example, Christian fortitude enables us to bear the 
ills put upon us by injustice and harsh dealing ! How 
unweariedly reason — that loftiest faculty of man — is 
exercised in devising wise laws to meet the wants of 
society which we have learned from our experience of 
evil ! Were all men innocent, it is argued, there 
would be no need of studying laws and principles, no 
moral reason and intelligence, no call for benevolence, 
no active sympathy, no high endurance, no Christian 



The Grace of God the Fathe?'. 6$ 

forgiveness, no opportunity of our benefiting one an- 
other and of becoming more excellent thereby. Fraud 
and violence and oppression, it is admitted, reduce to 
poverty ; drunkenness and neglect involve families in 
misery; evil passions inflict injuries; careless selfishness 
tramples on hearts without a thought. But these pain- 
ful effects of evil, it is argued, develop a far greater 
degree and higher state of virtue than could otherwise 
be developed, in those who suffer nobly and act chari- 
tably and reap a reward infinitely outweighing all mor- 
tal sufferings, in the exalted sphere to which the soul is 
translated after death. Upon the mountain-tops, in a 
purer but rarer atmosphere, virtue, it is thought, is 
stripped of its warmth, like the sunlight lying on eter- 
nal snow ; but in the denser air of lower earth it fills 
the otherwise dreary void with deeds of benevolence 
and love, which, without the coexistence of evil, it 
would have had no power to perform. In a world 
without sin, it is said, forgiveness could have no place, 
firmness and constancy no trial ; humility shows lovely 
in contrast with pride, and love itself is noblest when 
overcoming hate. Hence, it is said, there must be 
evil, or there could be no good. 

To this, our direct answer is short. The theory 
does not meet the fact, — it does not admit the magni- 
tude of the evil in the world. Is evil really so little 
that it is but the uncomely handmaid of good ? Far 
from it. What history does not teem with crimes? 
What nation's record shows virtue persistent on the 
throne? What star of empire has not set in blood, 
amid a people weltering in corruption ? 

Human nature, however, is supposed to be consti- 



64 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

tuted under such a necessity of evil within it and around 
it. It is further argued that there must be evil in 
others, for it to be around us ; and in us, that it may 
surround others, in order that mankind, by overcoming 
it, may attain to the highest good. For this reason, 
they say, man is not fallen ; but was created in a child- 
ish unconscious innocence, knowing neither good nor 
evil. An ignorance of temptation, it is said, and said 
truly, is less of good than a strong and conscious 
virtue victorious over it, or which has passed through 
the flames, and learned to embrace the good through 
loathing at the evil. Hence, it is argued, we must fall 
in order to rise. That soul only, it is to be inferred, 
can gain true intelligence and true virtue which has had 
a wild and bitter experience. The storms must beat 
upon it, that it may rise above them, and so attain the 
calm. Only by passing through the cloud is the sun- 
shine beheld in all its brightness. So, it is thought, 
must the soul be under the cloud of sin, that it may 
drink in the brightness of God's goodness. Hence, it 
is concluded, our moral progress is from unconscious 
innocence into the deep and the dark of sin, and 
through that to awakened conscience and resistance 
and victory, until it stands forth in the uprightness of 
the moral athlete, able to endure every conflict and 
secure in abundant strength. 

But this theory, to be complete, must add something 
more. If man have been, not only the victim of evil 
himself, but also the cause of grief and sorrow to 
others, — a leader of others into excesses, a bad example, 
and bad companion, — he has really been a benefit to 
the world ; for his evil is balanced by the good that 



The Grace of God the Father. 65 

accrues, when the virtue he has been the means of de- 
veloping, in those who have suffered heroically from 
himself and his bad associates, falls upon him in bright 
contrast to his hateful self, and so brings him back 
from the pit of sin to the love of good. For it is not 
unreasonable, in this Utopia, to hope for the universal 
result, that the man of guilty passions, at war with him- 
self (no account being taken of the slavery in which 
his passions hold him), will be led, by seeing the good- 
ness around him, to love it and embrace it, and to flee 
from his guilty self to a better life, under the guid- 
ance of that overruling power, to carry out whose edu- 
cational purposes he has been playing with the fierce 
and scorching lightnings. Or, if, untouched by the 
light (as it must be confessed many seem to be all their 
life through), he die wallowing in the mire, then, 
seeing that his guilt arises from a defect in his educa- 
tipn, it is thought that his career in another world will 
be, though bereft of much happiness as a lower and 
debased nature, yet free from actual misery; while 
those who have been led to virtue by overcoming evil 
will rise to heights otherwise impossible ; so that the 
sum of happiness in the future will, in any event, have 
been increased by the evil of the present. 

The fallacy from which this speculation starts is trans- 
parent enough. It supposes the primal innocence to 
have been simple unconsciousness of right and wrong. 
Innocence, it thinks, is thoughtful and confiding, happy 
and free, childlike and simple, lovable and yet defence- 
less, — a beautiful flower, but frail, and delicate and ex- 
posed. Such an unconsciousness must be at the mercy of 
the deceiver to be imposed upon, and of the tempter to 



66 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

be led away at the first allurement. If such be the origi- 
nal state of man, — if such were the condition of our 
first parents, — if they were innocent in the same sense 
in which we employ the term in speaking of childhood, 
human nature must be led away at the first temptation. 
Thinking no evil itself, it cannot comprehend the pos- 
sibility of the tempter's thinking evil, and so must fall 
into the snare. Such innocence, having no knowledge 
of the law of God as a rule of life, the penalty of 
which is to be feared, cannot be held back from sin by 
fear; not knowing wrong to be contrary to God's love, 
it cannot be held from it by the love of God. It must, 
therefore, trust to experiment for its enlightenment. 
The conflict of the soul with itself, in passing through 
the dark labyrinth of sin, will be necessary, with such a 
start, to give it reason and reflection and watchfulness 
and faith. Hence men think they have discovered the 
true account of the world's mystery of sin and sorrow, 
when they have supposed the human race exposed in- 
nocent and defenceless to every temptation to sin and 
crime. If its primal innocence were a childish uncon- 
sciousness of wrong, — a mere happy, thoughtless life, 
governed by its own impulses of self-preservation, 
nothing could elevate it to the dignity of rational, 
intelligent obedience but the experience of danger 
through the experience of sin. 

But if the evil of humanity in its origin be not neces- 
sary, but voluntary, — the consequence of a fall, and 
not inherent in us at first, though it be now, — then it is 
evident that the innocence of our first parents was 
something other than this mere defenceless unconscious- 
ness and unsuspecting confidence. If man were a 



The Grace of God the Father. 67 

moral and reasonable being, who was put into a state, 
not of education, but of probation, then evil was not 
necessary to bring him to the highest good, and the 
guilt of its appearance belonged to him alone ; he had 
all the consciousness of good, all the defence, all the 
safeguard against evil, all the moral height and gran- 
deur of his nature, when he came from his Maker's 
hand blessed and pronounced very good, which he 
could have after the fight had been fought and the 
victory won ; and the trial, even had he not sinned, 
could have left him nothing more than he was at first, — 
his only excellence being the persistent preservation of 
that holiness with which he was originally endowed. 

The picture which Holy Scripture shows us of the 
first man is this : not that, while he remained pure in 
the garden of Eden, he did good and right uncon- 
sciously; but that he did good consciously, knowing it 
to be good, and forewarned, and therefore forearmed 
against evil. His innocence was not merely negative, 
the want of experience of evil ; but it was the innocence 
of self-restraint, of obedience, of faith and love, of truth 
known as fully and completely as it could ever be. 
Adam was not created a child, nor a savage ; he was 
made a man. His innocence was not childish and un- 
suspecting, but manly and reflective; and therefore 
he had no need of sin and evil for an education into 
character. When he sinned, whatever may have been 
the labyrinth in which his soul wandered and bewildered 
itself so as to choose evil for its portion, — whatever may 
have been the secret interior moral history of the fall, — 
whatever the thoughts which passed through his soul, 
and induced him to yield to temptation, — he lost by 



68 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the experiment; he could not gain; and nothing in 
this mortal life, not even the glorious gospel of redemp- 
tion itself, can restore man, while on earth, to his pris- 
tine perfection, or give him the same moral judgment 
and moral knowledge of good which Adam possessed 
when first from his Maker's hands, his soul illuminated 
with the full light of the Holy Spirit. His primal in- 
nocence was that of principle, of knowledge, of reflec- 
tion, of self-restraint, of reason, of obedience, of per- 
fect and complete manhood. 

This is proved by two facts in the history of the fall. 
First, God gave to Adam an occupation and a law ; He 
endowed him with a calling and laid upon him a com- 
mand, which appealed to his reason and reflection as 
strongly as any experience of sin could be supposed to 
do. His life was to be a life of earnest work, without 
pain, indeed, and without sweat, but still work. " The 
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden 
of Eden to dress it and to keep it." "And the Lord 
God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree in 
the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil, thou mayest not eat of 
it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
surely die." Here was reflection and consciousness of 
responsibility, developed by the law demanding obe- 
dience, and therefore not needing a fall to develop it. 
The second fact is, that the perfection of Adam was to 
be retained by self-restraitit. The tree seemed every 
way a desirable one ; it was "good for food, and pleas- 
ant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one 
wise." It allured him to try his self-restraint, and the 
devil, in addition, was permitted to tempt him, to try 



The Grace of God the Father. 69 

his faith ; and this he did by holding out a false idea of 
the knowledge of good and evil. The tree was called 
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not because by 
it came the knowledge of good as well as of evil ; but 
because by it came the experience of evil in contrast 
with the good he had lost. To eat of it was, in reality, 
to obtain the knowledge of good lost and of evil gained, 
changing the one into the remembrance of a lost glory, 
and enthroning the other as an ever-present tyrant. 
But before he ate Adam had the knowledge of good, 
without the experience of evil, and in this consisted his 
perfection. The law and the sense of responsibility 
were the instruments and means of producing that re- 
flective, faithful obedience in which true perfection 
consists. 

Now, the having a law is not sin, nor is it evil ; nor 
is the being subject to temptation for probation. The 
yielding to temptation and the disobedience to law are 
the sin and the evil. There was, it is true, the possi- 
bility of sin; but the possibility of sin is not actual sin. 
There was no evil in the world when sin was only pos- 
sible and not actual. The possibility of evil is the con- 
dition of moral freedom itself; but there is no need 
that moral freedom should lead us into sin. Free 
obedience is far more moral freedom than actual diso- 
bedience. Hence, had Adam obeyed the law and kept 
from yielding to the temptation, there would have been 
the highest good without any evil. Here, then, is the 
true solution of the question respecting perfection of 
nature in Adam. His moral and spiritual qualities 
were developed and brought into action by the law of 
positive command, and that law was the condition of his 
7 



70 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

spiritual probation. The law of nature was % preserva- 
tive of his existence; the law of reason governed him 
in his worldly occupation ; but the law of command 
brought him into the communion of faith and obedience 
with his God and Father. 

The significance of the law of positive command is 
thus made evident. It is the condition of his becom- 
ing a higher being than a mere animal. For if we 
examine carefully, we shall find that all the difference 
in action between a spiritual nature and an animal na- 
ture is contained in the idea of moral responsibility, or 
accountability. And this accountability being analyzed, 
implies a mutual trust of each other on the part of two 
parties ; the superior committing to the inferior a trust, 
on the faith that he will keep it, without any positive 
guarantee of the confidence thus reposed ; and the in- 
ferior accepting the trust, without any guarantee of the 
reward or punishment, except his faith and confidence 
in the superior. Now, if the trust be betrayed, respon- 
sibility rests, because of the personal offence implied in 
unfaithfulness. The disobedient subject puts a personal 
affront upon the superior by doubting his word, or 
setting at naught his menace, or making light of his 
proffered rewards. His disobedience and unfaithful- 
ness imply contempt of the person who has put the law 
upon him ; while, on the other hand, obedience and 
faithfulness imply faith, love, trust, high principle, hope, 
and confidence. Obedience or disobedience to a posi- 
tive command is, therefore, a strictly personal concern ; 
the imposition of such command brings God and man 
into personal communion with each other, in a way 
which could not have been accomplished by the law of 



The Grace of God the Father. 71 

nature, or the law of reason. For faith, love, and 
trust come in when a law is given to us of which we do 
not see the reason ; when we do see it, the reason is 
sufficient to determine us, without either faith, or love, 
or hope. But only by positive command can a law be 
given of which we do not see the reason ; and there- 
fore, if there had been no command in Paradise, 
Adam would not have been in the way of developing 
those moral and spiritual qualities, nor gifted with that 
personal communion with God, which made him the 
chief of the terrestrial creation. 

But as it was the law of command which gave Adam 
his moral being, so it was in disobedience to it that he 
fell. The possibility of his elevation involved the 
possibility of his fall. It being God's gracious will, 
therefore, to give man the loftiest position possible for 
a created being to attain, He did not shrink (if we 
may so speak) from any possible consequences which 
that intention involved, nor did He fail to make such 
provision for the reparation of the evil as might be 
necessary in case it occurred. "The Lamb" was 
"slain from the foundation of the world." Out of 
the command grew the whole moral and spiritual his- 
tory of mankind. Nor is it conceivable how, were 
there not the command, any disobedience or sin could 
have been possible, — how any man could have haw. free 
to do right because able to do wrong. For the impulses, 
emotions, and instincts which proclaimed the law of 
nature were themselves the agents in obeying it ; in 
proclaiming it, they were actually at work obeying it ; 
the proclamation and the obedience were in general 
identical, and the perfect man would never will to do 



72 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

anything which the law of nature prohibited. The 
same is true with respect to the law of reason. Guided 
by reason, we always choose that which seems to us to 
be best; and if reason were perfect, as it was in Adam, 
it would show us that which is really the best ; nor is it 
agreeable to the nature of reason, seeing the best, to 
choose a worse. Hence there could be no disobedi- 
ence to the law of reason in a perfect state. As far as 
it or the law of nature is concerned, we should stand 
on the moral level of the brutes, who have no morality, 
have no personal faith, are conscious of no accounta- 
bility, because they are subject to no positive com- 
mand. The moral station which implied the possi- 
bility of choice inherent in the nature of freedom is 
that of subordination to a command ; and this station 
is the highest to which any created being can aspire. 

Adam misused his freedom to disobey the command ; 
he sinned, and lost his innocence, his favor with God, 
his happy Paradise, and his perfection of nature. 

Of the fall itself, speculation can give us no clearer 
knowledge than our possession of the simple fact. 
Adam was tempted ; he had the power of resistance, 
he was forewarned of the consequence, he did not re- 
sist, he was unfaithful, disobeyed, and fell. The effect 
of the fall upon himself was the guilt of his disobedi- 
ence fixed upon his soul, the withdrawal of God's favor, 
the departure of the indwelling Spirit of God, the loss, 
consequently, of immortality, spiritual death immedi- 
ately, and temporal death after a short delay ; and, 
besides this, such a corruption of his being, such an 
indwelling sin, that neither nature nor reason would 
henceforth proclaim audibly and clearly the law they 



The Grace of God the Father. 73 

were intended to teach. The depravation of the spir- 
itual being spread into the rational and the natural 
being, and depraved them likewise, so that, in every 
part of his constitution, he was "very far gone from 
original righteousness," had within himself the seeds 
of sin, and transmitted this fault, and corruption and 
unhappy state to all his posterity. 

Here, then, is the true explanation of those facts 
which the false theory noticed above misconstrues and 
perverts. The primitive state of man is for us only a 
fixed point of observation, — not a present or attainable 
state. We are not as Adam was ; evil is now a melan- 
choly experience, and sin a dreadful plague. Our 
present state, with all its moral phenomena, is the con- 
sequence of that original sin which brought death into 
the world, and changed the whole pathway of humanity 
towards eternal life. The redeemed and regenerate 
man has a different development of spiritual life from 
what would have been had he retained his purity. He 
comes into the world a sinner, as made by Adam ; he 
leaves it a saint, as new-made by Christ. He derives 
guilt from Adam, and he must arrive at the knowledge 
of good through Christ. The work of grace is the 
work of restoration. 

It is true that on coming into the world, and for a 
long time after we have attained some physical and in- 
tellectual growth, we are in a state of moral uncon- 
sciousness ; but it is not the true explanation of the 
fact that unconsciousness in man is innocence. Moral 
unconsciousness is moral guilt, — the effect of the loss en- 
tailed upon us by the fall. To one who watches with 
an observant eye, it cannot but be evident how easily 

7* 



74 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

and how unconsciously the so-called innocence of 
childhood falls from one wrong into another as years 
pass on, totally defenceless (if apart from the saving 
influence of God's grace given to His church) against 
the assaults and seductions of the tempter. The cycle 
of life, in too many cases, it is admitted, runs through 
and because of moral unconsciousness, into actual and 
open sin; then, by the grace of God, the sin is brought 
home to the conscience, the man passes through a crisis 
of the spiritual life, and at length begins to serve God 
aright, having developed, by the aid of Divine grace, 
moral consciousness, reflection, repentance, living 
faith, self-examination, repudiation of sin, and the 
endeavor to lead a holy life. But why so defenceless 
against sin at the first, except that he has inherited a 
fall? That cannot be true innocence which falls natu- 
rally, as the powers waken, into first the little sin, then 
the great sin, then the life of sin. It is guilt, needing 
the atoning blood of the Redeemer to wash out its 
stain, — needing the alarm of conscience urging it to 
seek the conscious innocence of justification by grace. 

The true account of our actual sin is not that it is 
our necessary education up to good, but that it is the 
fruit and manifestation of that original sin in which 
we were born. We are justly held guilty before the 
act, because by our birth-sin, our fallen estate, and 
our want or our neglect of the safeguards of religion, 
we carry the principle of disobedience or unruliness 
within and have no defence against it. 

"Sin," says St. John, "is the transgression of the 
law;" and therefore its chief offence is against God 
the Father, since He is that person of the Holy Trinity 



The Grace of God the Father. 75 

who is the giver of the law. This consideration ena- 
bles us to observe the difference between the grace of 
the Father, and the grace of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit, — the Father's grace accepting the atonement, 
the Son making it ; the Father granting our sanctifica- 
tion, the Spirit working it. The contrast we have just 
concluded, of the fallen with the unfallen state of man, 
will show us also what action of the grace of God the 
Father is directed towards us in our fallen, and what in 
our regenerate state. 

1. In the holy and happy state of Paradise, since 
there was no need of redemption, there was no need 
of redeeming grace ; still there was grace of God the 
Father with the man unfallen. Applied to what Adam 
enjoyed in that state, the word grace is used in its 
primary sense, to denote the favor and love of God 
bestowed upon Adam in the perfect bliss of full com- 
munion and personal converse with his Maker. We 
may also apply the word to the indwelling presence of 
the Holy Spirit which was in Adam until he lost his 
innocence/ Thus the word bears its second sense, a 
gift actually given, — in Scripture language, "poured 
out upon" or infused into the mind or soul of man. 
A clear apprehension of the distinction between these 
two meanings is most important, for the reason that 
while the first sense is common to each of the three 
persons of the Holy Trinity, the second sense is pecu- 
liar to the second and third persons, as will be seen 
further on. In the first sense, grace or favor is not a 
gift actually given over to man ; it is (to speak after 



1 See Bp. Bull's Fifth Discourse. 



76 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the manner of the schools) an affection of the Divine 
Mind immanent in Deity ; in the second sense, grace 
is a spiritual gift transferred to man by a Divine act, 
and remaining with him, unless, in consequence of sin, 
it be withdrawn. Both kinds of grace were enjoyed 
by Adam in Paradise, — the presence of the Spirit as a 
gift, the love and favor of the Father as a disposition 
or affection; the latter the source of the former, as, 
indeed, of all other gifts, of whatever kind, which 
added to the blessedness and happiness of Adam's per- 
fection. 

All things, it was said, are of the Father, by the 
Son, through the Holy Spirit. The Father is the 
source or origin of all beings ; the Son and the Spirit 
are the immediate agents by whom all operations are 
carried on. What the Father wrought in the creation 
of the world, He wrought by the Son, and through the 
Holy Spirit. So, likewise, in the work of grace, what 
the Father, who is the source and original of grace as 
of all other good, communicates to mankind, is given 
by the Son, through the Holy Spirit. The Father, 
therefore, enters not personally into our souls; but the 
grace which enters into man as a gift, is given per- 
sonally by the Son, or by the Holy Spirit, and the 
Father is present essentially, by His unity with the 
Son and the Holy Spirit, whom He gives to us. a 
Hence the grace which He personally shows to man is 
His favor and love, His forgiveness and justification 
and adoption, the immanent affection which is the 
foundation of the grace given by the other Persons of 

a St. John, xiv. 23. 



The Grace of God the Father. 77 

the blessed Trinity. And with this fundamental con- 
ception of the grace of God the Father, the language 
of Scripture uniformly agrees. 

2. The grace of God the Father towards fallen, un- 
regenerate man, must, of course, difTer in its mani- 
festation from that towards him in his first estate. It 
is developed in showing mercy. Love and favor, as 
such, are for the perfect ; mercy is for the fallen. 

By his disobedience, man forfeited the love and 
favor of God. Instead of continuing a child of God, 
he became a rebellious and condemned sinner, a child 
of wrath whose future, by his own act, was the penalty 
of which he had been warned, temporal and eternal 
death. The Holy Spirit, who had clothed him with a 
robe of righteousness, was withdrawn ; he was guilty, 
naked, ashamed, conscience-stricken, already unhappy, 
self-condemned, and expectant of unhappiness forever. 
He had offended God, had no more title to Divine 
grace in any form, had arrayed against himself, on the 
contrary, every attribute of the Divine nature. The 
justice of God required satisfaction j His holiness, the 
condemnation of sin ; His truth, that the threatened 
penalty should be inflicted ; His majesty, the vindica- 
tion of His law ; even His love, that the disorder and 
disturbance of a perverse will should be banished from 
the harmonies of the Creation. The sin of Adam 
was no "being overtaken in a fault." The command 
had been disobeyed with full knowledge of the conse- 
quences. No account of the event will meet the truth, 
but that it was the wilful, conscious disobedience of 
pride and ambition, by which Adam set himself against 
God, and sought another place than that which God 



73 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

had assigned him ; and of necessity he set God against 
himself, unless some means were found, by which God 
and man might be reconciled. 

Now, since God the Father, as we have seen, is the 
giver of the Law, the offence was particularly against 
Him. He was the offended person. The Son and 
the Holy Spirit could not but partake in the Father's 
indignation against and abhorrence of the sin, as being 
one with Him, as having the same will, and the same 
holiness ; but against the Father, formally and prin- 
cipally was the sin committed. The alienation was a 
total alienation from God, but specially from God the 
Father. The Father, therefore, could not, by the 
necessities of the case, be the person who' actively 
wrought the reconciliation. The grace, which even 
as an affection was forfeited, could not become a gift 
immediately from the Father, entering into the soul 
of man, and so regenerating him. It could only re- 
main (so far as Scripture gives us ground for con- 
cluding) as a merciful disposition, and a merciful sus- 
pension of judgment until the Atonement was made 
for the sin, and its effect upon man's nature was blotted 
out by his regeneration and renewal. If any act or 
gift of grace could restore the filial relation, it must 
come into our souls, whether as an object of faith, or 
as a regenerating power, from the Son, or the Holy 
Spirit ; the deed availing to reconciliation must be 
acted towards the Father, not by the Father. We 
have seen that the grace of God could become a gift to 
the man unfallen, only in the person of the Son and 
of the Holy Ghost ; there must be added the addi- 
tional reason against its becoming so, in the case of 



The Grace of God the Father. 79 

fallen man, that God the Father was the offended per- 
son, and so set at an immeasurably greater distance 
from mankind. In the attitude of hostility (for it was 
no less) in which man had set God the Father against 
him by his transgression, — when the primitive love 
and favor had been forfeited, no further advance or 
closer approach could be thought of, until the atone- 
ment was provided, on the part of that person against 
whom the sin had been committed, and all whose at- 
tributes were pledged to vindicate the broken law. 

The prevent ent grace of God the Father, therefore, is 
His merciful disposition towards mankind, displayed in 
several acts preparatory to their forgiveness, regenera- 
tion, and readoption into His Kingdom and family. 
The Holy Scripture shows us the extent of this merciful 
disposition: "God so loved the world that He gave 
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He 
suspended the infliction of extreme punishment on 
Adam • He permitted his posterity to come into the 
world with a hope of redemption, though born in sin ; 
He sent His Son in due time to make the atonement, 
and authorized a new covenant, whereby its virtue 
could be communicated to each particular man for the 
forgiveness of his sins. For if there were not this 
prevenient grace and merciful disposition of Gpd the 
Father towards man, how could the means of regenera- 
tion and restoration ever have been provided ? Unless 
God the Father had the merciful will to accept the 
atonement and permit the regeneration, neither the 
atonement nor the regeneration would have been 
possible by the agency of the Son and the Holy Spirit, 



80 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

who are in all things subordinate to the Father, and 
can do nothing against His will. 

Every man, then, who is now born into the world, 
stands in this relation to God the Father. He is born 
in sin, with the taint of guilt and the disorder of nature 
under which Adam remained after the Fall ; subject, 
therefore, to condemnation ; called in Holy Scripture 
a "child of wrath." But, by the mercy of God, the 
condemnation is suspended, the execution stayed, and 
an opportunity offered to escape it altogether. Man is 
not, at birth, in a "state of salvation," but of condem- 
nation suspended by grace ; and this suspension of 
judgment, together with the provision for the atone- 
ment, is the prevenient grace of the Father. Before we 
can be truly in a " state of salvation," we must be made 
actual partakers of the virtue of the atonement, by re- 
generation through the Son, and sanctification of the 
Spirit. 

3. Then will God the Father accept us again into 
the fulness of His love and favor as His own children 
by adoption. This is the third bestowal of the grace 
of the Father. When regenerate in Christ, God re- 
stores us to His love, and adopts us again into his 
family. The suspended condemnation is now alto- 
gether removed j instead of a mere provisional exist- 
ence, a toleration conditional on a future regeneration, 
we are now " accepted in the Beloved." The dividing 
line between this grace of complete acceptance and that 
of forecasting mercy is, for all who live where the Gospel 
is known (and of others we have no means of judging), 
the moment when they are made one with Christ in 
the waters of regeneration. Before that moment, they 



The Grace of God the Father. 81 

are sinners under sentence of death ; after that, they 
are children of God, restored, regenerated, accepted, 
adopted, heirs of the everlasting inheritance of His 
love and favor as Adam was at first, — nay, better than 
in Adam's first estate, for they are beloved in Christ, 
still subject, however, to the " infection of nature, 
which remains even in them that are regenerated," a 
and which cannot be wholly eradicated until the death 
of the body, and its resurrection from the grave. 

This final and full grace of God the Father is mani- 
fested particularly in the economy of Redemption, by 
those declarative acts of Divine goodness towards us, 
which assure us of our estate, conditioned on the 
effectual operations of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, 
respecting which we shall treat in the subsequent chap- 
ters. They are : i. Remission, or Forgiveness, by 
which all our sins are pardoned and blotted out of the 
book of God's remembrance, no more to appear against 
us. 2. Justification, by which we are declared or ac- 
counted just before God, for the merits of His Son 
Jesus Christ, in whom we are regenerate and made 
righteous. 3. Adoption, by which the cloud on our 
Sonship of the Universal Father is removed, and we 
can rejoice in the love He dispenses to His children. 
For which mercy and grace to Him be praise and 
thanksgiving for ever and ever. 

b Art. IX, of the XXXIX Articles. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE GRACE OF THE SON. 



A /TAN fell, as we have seen, by a voluntary act of 
disobedience; and his fall was the death of his 
spiritual nature, God's favor and the presence of His 
Spirit being withdrawn; for, "as the soul is the life of 
the body," says an old author, "so God is the life of 
the soul." By the fall, his rational nature also became 
depraved, and his animal nature corrupted ; so that he 
could work righteousness neither by the natural law 
nor by the law of reason, any more than by the com- 
mandment. We fallen men, in our wickedness, act 
both disobediently, and irrationally, and unnaturally ; 
in every way, therefore, we disobey the law of God, 
and are amenable to His severest displeasure. But in 
the midst of His anger God remembered mercy ; He 
provided a way for our restoration ; "He so loved the 
world" that He gave His Son for our Redeemer, a 
Mediator between God and Man. 

The work set before the Mediator was twofold : 
i, to satisfy the law of God, by an atonement for the 
transgression, and thus to blot out the sin (so to speak) 
from the book of God; and 2, to regenerate, renew, 
and finally restore man to a state of perfect righteous- 
ness, so that no record nor trace of sin remains in the 
(82) 



The Grace of the Son. 83 

book of human nature. Both these operations are 
necessary; for whether God read the record of sin in 
His own book, or in man's book (if it were possible, 
which it is not, that it could be blotted out from the 
one while it remained in the other), it must meet with 
condemnation, wherever it is read, and therefore it 
must be wiped from both records. The one work is 
performed by the Atonement which Christ offered to 
the Father; the other, by the communication of His 
grace to each person who receives it, — for, unless we be 
partakers of Christ's grace to blot out our sins from our 
own hearts, the Atonement does not avail to blot them 
out from the book of God's remembrancer 

The Grace of the Son is His entire work of media- 
tion, undertaken in obedience to the Father, and from 
love and mercy to us men ; but specially, the term is 
used in this book to designate His influence and work 
in the nature of man, regenerating and restoring it. 
Preliminary to the inquiry what that influence and work 
are, it is important to answer the question, What are 
the conditions in human nature to be met by the act 
which restores? 

It is evident that the restoration cannot be, like the 
fall, an act purely voluntary on the part of man, else 
would no mediator and no grace be required. But 
since man has still a will (though enfeebled, naturally 
disposed only to evil, and unable to do good of itself), 

a Misapprehension of the relation of grace imparted and the 
Atonement offered, is the foundation of the difficulty from which 
the Calvinists seek to escape by their sad error of "Particular 
Redemption." 



84 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

and since one effect of the restoration must be to bring 
the will back to the freedom it has lost, so that it will 
be a restored will", obeying freely, the grace of the Re- 
deemer will be made a matter of voluntary acceptance, 
and the restoration will be so far voluntary on man's 
part, as that he is willingly, or not at all, a subject of 
regenerating grace. a Man, though he is unable to 
" turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength 
and good works to faith and calling upon God," b is 
able, when his heart has been touched by the Spirit, 
and the salvation is offered to his personal acceptance, to 
exercise a choice in respect of it, to accept or to reject 
it. The means by which he is Divinely enabled to act 
with freedom in seeking and receiving the regeneration 
will be seen in the next chapter, in which we treat of 
the grace of the Holy Spirit; for the present, attention 
is asked to the fact that we are voluntary subjects of the 
grace of the Son. 

To accept that grace voluntarily, is to accept it by 
an act; and so to bring it under the conditions of 
human actions in general. 

To perform any voluntary action, man needs, under 
the laws of his finite nature, (i) the motive, (2) the 
opportunity, and (3) the power to accomplish what 
he wills. The Infinite will draws all the conditions 
of action from itself, unbounded by anything without 
itself; but a finite will, before it can act, must be 
stirred by the heart with a motive to act, in a desire 

a The case of infants, before they reach the age of consciousness 
and responsibility, is an exception to be noted hereafter. 
b Article X, of the XXXIX Articles. 



The Grace of the Son. 85 

which seeks realization ; it must be afforded the oppor- 
tunity for action, which is perceived by the mind, the 
observing and thinking faculty. Having the motive 
and the opportunity, the freedom of the will consists 
in this, that it is not necessarily controlled by them ; 
it has an inherent ability to adopt or resist the motive, 
to perform or decline the action. This seems to be 
the law of finite, voluntary action, so far as we are 
able to conceive it. A perfect finite will, therefore, is 
that to which the heart always presents the right 
motives and the mind the right opportunities; and 
which retains in itself, unimpaired, the power of action 
with which it was originally endowed by its Creator. 

The human will, however, is not perfect. It is cor- 
rupt and depraved, partly in its loss of power to do 
what otherwise it might have done, and partly in its 
connection with the other faculties of our nature. In 
fallen man, the heart, the seat of the desires, affections, 
and other motives, is fallen; by its separation from 
God it has lost faith, hope, and love, the higher spirit- 
ual motives to action ; it retains only the lower, dis- 
orderly, selfish or sensual passions and emotions. Now, 
when these are all the motives which the heart presents 
to the will, the will itself may be free; but, from its 
very constitution, as depending on motives, it is, in 
the language of the old theologians, " free only to do 
evil" apart from Divine grace; free of choice, but 
having a choice only among diverse modes of evil. 
In this fallen state, helpless, hopeless, and unholy, if 
man were forsaken of all influences of Divine grace, 
none but evil motives could be present in his heart, 
none but opportunities of evil action could present 
8* 



S6 ' Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

themselves to his mind ; and therefore his will could 
have neither power, nor motive, nor opportunity to do 
the thing that is right. For without the Redeemer and 
the Gospel, and the grace given for the Redeemer's 
sake, there could be no repentance, and no impulse 
towards it ; no faith as a ground of hope ; no oppor- 
tunity of regeneration, and no motive to seek it. The 
will could act freely and by choice, up to its power, 
under the motives presented ; but those motives them- 
selves, being all evil, would urge only to the short- 
lived pleasures of sin, or to hate against God, under 
whose righteous condemnation we lay. That this is 
not our state is of the prevenient mercy and grace of 
God. 

The three things, then, which it was necessary to 
provide for man, to meet the conditions of human 
action, and enable him to accept as a voluntary agent 
the grace of regeneration, are — (i) for his heart, a 
motive to seek and accept it; a "conviction of sin, 
of righteousness, and of judgment ;" a (2) for his mind, 
a knowledge of the Redeemer, by whom, and the means 
by which, it may be obtained ; and (3) for the will 
itself, an exertion within his ability, by which, under 
the direction of the heart and the mind, it may take 
hold of, and receive back again, the life and power, 
by the loss of which it has been unable to do good, by 
the restoration of which it will be enabled to serve 
God more and more perfectly, growing day by day to 
spiritual manhood. 

Correspondingly the act of the man, requisite to 

1 John, .wi. S. 



The Grace of the Son. 87 

obtain the gift which entitles him to his readoption 
into God's family, unfolds in a threefold development: 
(1) obedience to the motive, the forsaking of sin, the 
return to good works, the desire to be cleansed from 
guilt, the determination to live as becometh the child 
of God, — repentance, the allegiance of the heart to 
God ; (2) recognition of the Redemption wrought, 
trust in the Redeemer, perception of the opportunity 
and means offered, or faith, which is the allegiance of 
the mind; and (3) the seeking by the appointed 
means, and the thankful and joyful receiving the gift 
by which the will and the whole man is regenerated. 

Repentance, faith, regeneration, these three acts, or 
rather, these three developments of the one act, must 
agree in the man who is restored by the grace of the 
Son, to the favor and grace of the Father. Repent- 
ance without faith will not avail, nor faith without 
repentance (were either possible separately, which 
neither is), nor both faith and repentance without 
the actual gift of regeneration. Salvation is a grace 
given unto us. Though voluntarily receptive, we 
are only receptive in every stage of our spiritual re- 
newal. Even repentance and faith are the yielding 
to an influence from above. The act, then, through- 
out is receptive ; it has its virtue in the work of the 
Mediator; and thus the conditions are harmonized 
that it is under the conditions of our voluntary action, 
and yet is entirely the work of the Son of God. 

The reader will bear in mind that I am now treating 
of the Grace of the Son. Many questions will doubt- 
less suggest themselves, and press for an immediate 
reply, touching the genesis of repentance and faith, 



88 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

which, in order of time, precede the gift of the regen- 
erating grace of the Son ; they will be answered in the 
subsequent chapter on the Grace of the Holy Spirit. 
Nor is what has been said intended as a complete ac- 
count of repentance and faith. As viewed thus far, 
they are rather a preparation for, than a part of, the 
Christian life, which does not begin until our regenera- 
tion j after which both faith and repentance have a 
new development and office. What it is wished to fix 
attention upon at this time is, that three operations of 
the spiritual faculties of man must coincide in one 
complex act of voluntary return to God, and accept- 
ance of the offered salvation, in order to begin the 
new life. *. 

It has pleased the Divine Wisdom that these faculties 
should all find their object in the one person, who is 
set forth as the Redeemer, in whom are combined all 
the attributes and offices required as the complement 
of man's needs and weaknesses, and guilt and dire 
necessity. 

The one testimony of our Saviour to Himself, there- 
fore, which is all-inclusive, — the text in which He has 
collected all His multifarious revelations of Himself 
into one focus, — is the declaration: "I am the Way, 
the Truth, and the Life ; no man cometh unto the 
Father but by Me." a Of this text, so full of meaning 
and so wide in application, comprehending all pro- 
vision for the necessities of man, regenerate or unre- 
generate, the meaning doubtless is: "The Way," by 
which the penitent may return and be accepted ; "The 

a John, xiv. 6. 



The Grace of the Son. 89 

Truth," which the faithful behold; "The Life" com- 
municated to the regenerate. To repent and plead 
Christ's merits is to enter on the way; to believe in 
Him is to know the truth ; to be made one with Him 
in His Church is to have the life. 

The consideration of the grace of the Son, therefore, 
divides itself into three heads: (1) as he is the Way; 
(2) as he is the Truth ; (3) as he is the Life. 

In each development, however, it has the same rela- 
tion to its source, which is therefore first to be noted. 

The grace of the Son is personal, — given from Him- 
self as distinct from the Father and from the Holy 
Spirit. The Son is the second Person of the Holy 
Trinity, and upon this His distinct personality depends 
His power to help us in our needs. " In Him was life, 
and that life was the light of men." a "As the Father 
hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to 
have life in Himself." 5 Hence He takes of His own 
to give unto us, that "through Him we may have access 
to the Father." 

Now His personal grace is the effluence and act of 
whatsoever belongs to His personality. His whole 
Person is at work in the atonement He has made for 
us, and in the grace He gives to us. But His Person 
includes both His Deity and His humanity. He is 
God, and He became man; He is God and man 
thenceforth, in one person. He became man for the 
work of Redemption ; He is God and man, therefore, 
in whatsoever appertains to that work. 

This truth the Church confessed in the decision of 

a John, i. 4. b John, v. 26. c Eph. ii. 18. 



90 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

her General Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, that 
the two natures, Divine and human, exist in the one 
person of Christ. The Divine Person assumed human 
nature, not a human person, into conjunction with 
Himself, so that after the conjunction there were no 
more persons, — there was no other person than before. 
He took a complete human nature, — a human body and 
a human soul; but He who assumed it was still the 
one person and no other, — God the Son. His human 
nature belonged to His personality; it did not consti- 
tute another personality. In the well-known language 
of our great Hooker, "If the Son of God had taken 
to Himself a man new-made and already perfected, it 
would of necessity follow that there are in Christ two 
persons, — the one assuming and the other assumed ; 
whereas, the Son of God did not assume a man's per- 
son into His own, but a man's nature to His own per- 
son, and therefore took semen, the seed of Abraham, 
the very first original element of our nature, before it 
was come to have any personal human subsistence. 
The flesh and the conjunction of the flesh with God 
began both at one instant ; his making and taking to 
Himself our flesh was but one act, so that in Christ 
there is no personal subsistence but one, and that from 
everlasting. By taking only the nature of man, He 
still continueth one person, and changeth but the 
manner of His subsisting, which was before in the 
mere glory of the Son of God, and is now in the 
habit of our flesh. " a 

Now, as He became man, that He might accomplish 



a Ec. Pol., b. v. ch. lii. 3. 



The Grace of the Son. 91 

our Redemption, it follows that His Atonement is the 
compound effect of His Divine worth and His human 
action; it follows, also, that His regenerating and re- 
storing grace is a compound influence of His Divine 
life and His glorified humanity. There is a human 
part or element in the grace of the Son, as well as a 
Divine. He is the Way, by being man, as well as by 
being God ; the Truth, as God, and also as man ; the 
Life, both as God and as man. His Divine and human 
natures are united in His action and influence, as they 
are united in His person. This truth seems to have 
been strangely overlooked in our day ; but it was uni- 
versally admitted and dwelt upon by our Fathers in the 
faith. "Doth any man doubt," asks Hooker, "but 
that even from the flesh of Christ our very bodies do 
receive that life which shall make them glorious at the 
latter day, and for which they are already accounted 
parts of His blessed body?" a The conjoint activity of 
the two natures in the work of grace was so universally 
received that that great divine could not conceive the 
possibility of a negative answer. The grace of the 
Godhead, filling Christ as man, is diffused from Him, 
as man, upon those whom "He is not ashamed to call 
His brethren ;" b and by vital union with Him, the 
second Adam, drawing immortality from Him as we 
drew nature from the first Adam, we who are regener- 
ate are made living members of His body, living 
branches of Him, the true vine. 

His mediatorial work, therefore, in all its parts, de- 
pends on His Incarnation, — His being made flesh. He 

a Ec. Pol., b. v. ch. lvi. 9. b Heb. ii. 11. 



92 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

"was made man;" He lived upon earth thirty-three 
years and a third; He taught, He suffered, He died; 
thus accomplishing the first part of His Mediation, the 
making atonement to the Father for our sins. After 
this, He rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, 
in token that the atonement is sufficient. This was 
preliminary to the gift of His indwelling grace. Even 
the salvation of those who died in faith before He 
came seems to have waited for its completion until His 
death, according to that passage in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews: "These all, having obtained a good report, 
through faith, received not the promise : God having 
provided some better thing for us, that they, without 
us, should not be made perfect." 4 As respects us who 
live after His day, our part in the atonement is con- 
ditioned on our participation of His grace. 

It does not fall within the plan of this work to dis- 
cuss at large the logical conceptions under which men 
have presented to themselves fuller or more partial 
views of the Atonement; nor to consider the perver- 
sions of Scripture language by those who deny it. It 
has been argued that the Atonement is offered to the 
justice of God, as the assumption by Christ of our 
penalty ; that it is the means of appeasing the anger of 
God; that it is directed to the holiness of God; that 
the actual sufferings of the Saviour were equivalent to 
the aggregate pains of all who would have been lost 
without Him. But it is rather, I conceive, to be ac- 
cepted as a transcendent truth, above all logical state- 
ments or analysis, containing within itself a likeness to 

a Heb. xi. 39, 40. 



The Grace of the Son. 93 

all the analogies by which it is represented in the Holy 
Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, but 
not to be adequately described by any one ; a fact, in- 
disputable on the authority of Holy Scripture, but, like 
the Incarnation, a mystery above our comprehension. 
It satisfies, and is addressed to all the attributes of God ; 
it is, at once, the mirror of His love, the satisfaction of 
His justice, the vindication of His holiness, the mani- 
festation of His wisdom, the exhibition of His power, 
the assertion of His sovereignty, the example of His 
mercy, the display of His glory, "which angels desire 
to look into and are not able." a Against those, how- 
ever, who deny the death of Christ to be a proper 
sacrificial act, an atonement and propitiation for sin, 
while they profess to receive Holy Scripture, we need 
urge but one reflection. If His death on Mount Cal- 
vary were not a propitiatory and expiatory sacrifice for 
the sins of the world, to what effect were the multitudi- 
nous sacrifices of bulls and goats and lambs offered up, 
day by day, for so many centuries, by God's appoint- 
ment, in the tabernacle and the temple, in prophecy 
and type of that "blood of Jesus Christ which cleans- 
eth from all sin ?" It is not that the Sacrifice of Christ 
is represented of like nature with those others by a Di- 
vine accommodation to the partial conception of the 
human understanding, but that those precedent typical 
sacrifices themselves were established by Almighty God, 
for the express purpose of educating the human mind to 
a right conception of that precious death of Christ. The 

a The student may follow out for himself the train of thought 
thus suggested. 

9 



94 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

type took its meaning from the antitype, not the anti- 
type from the type. By the sacrifices of the Mosaic 
law, God taught the world that the death of Christ 
was truly an expiation ; and if the type — so many 
thousands of lives sacrificed day by day and year by 
year — if this type were so great, even counted by money 
value and mere number — if the principle of sacrifice for 
expiation and for purification were made to pervade 
every part of the national and the individual religion — 
if these millions of stricken victims and seas of blood 
were but the type, what must be the infinite dignity 
and awfulness of the antitype ? 

As a man, "the Christ," the "anointed Man," the 
Son, became our Prophet, Priest, and King. He com- 
bined in His person all the offices to which the anoint- 
ing oil, which was the type of His Spirit, consecrated 
men. Elisha was His type, thus consecrated a Prophet ; 
Aaron, thus set apart a Priest ; David, thus made a King. 
As a Priest, Christ atones for, intercedes for, blesses us ; 
as a Prophet, He reveals, teaches, instructs ; as a King, 
He protects, governs, and feeds us. This is the Catho- 
lic conception of Christ's office. It is but another 
way of saying what He Himself said, in the text we 
have quoted. As Priest, He is the Way ; for by His 
atonement and intercession we can approach the 
Father, and by His blessing all favor from the Father 
is given us. As Prophet, He is the Truth, for He is 
Himself the doctrine He reveals. As King, he is the 
Life, for from His royal treasure-house of grace we re- 
ceive our new life of pardon and obedience, and our 
nourishment with heavenly food. 

These offices are inseparable in Him, as are His two 



The Grace of the Son. 95 

natures, both in themselves and in relation to us. The 
atonement He made as priest does not avail for us in- 
dividually, unless we have accepted Him as prophet ; 
nor does He make the revelation of Himself as the 
Truth, in His full blaze of glory and of comfort to our 
souls, until we are subject to His kingly rule, partakers 
of His kingly bounty, and related to Him as "the first- 
born among many brethren." He is not the Way for 
us, unless He is for us the Truth ; nor is He the saving 
Truth for us, unless He is in us the Life. "In Him 
was life, and that life was the light of men." His act, 
though complex, is one ; though consisting of many 
parts, it is a complete whole, of which all must be 
ours, or not any. 

It being laid at the foundation, therefore, that the 
grace of Christ is a compound effect of His own two 
natures in the unity of His person, having both a Di- 
vine and human element, and reposing upon the fact of 
the Atonement ; and these truths being such as must 
not be lost sight of for an instant, but are assumed in 
all which is hereafter said, we proceed to consider 
each declaration separately. And as our purpose is to 
state the doctrine of Holy Scripture, we shall chiefly 
occupy ourselves with ranging under each head such 
passages as belong there, pointing out their bearing 
and interpretation when necessary. 

I. First, then, Christ is "the Way." The reader 
will have seen, by this time, from the course of the 
argument, that the significance of this title which our 
Lord assumed to Himself is derived from the sad but 
certain truth, that by sin man is set afar off from God, 
that the communication has been broken off between 



g6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the sinful being and his Maker. This necessitated a 
mediation and a Mediator. It was in respect of the 
mediation of His Son Jesus Christ, as at a future time 
to be accomplished, that God gave His prevenient grace 
to those who lived acceptably before the coming of 
Christ ; and it is with respect to the same mediation 
that He now gives grace and shows mercy to men, 
even before they are actually accepted into saving 
union with the Head of the Church. Whatsoever 
dealings of God with man, therefore, have been merci- 
ful (as what dealings have not?), whether before the 
Atonement was made or since, whether the recipients 
of mercy are accepted Christians or not yet regenerate ; 
whatsoever access man has had to God, to ask either 
for transitory mercies or for everlasting salvation, have 
been procured for us by the mediation of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, — by His priestly acts of atonement for our 
sins, and of intercession on our behalf. He has made 
"a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, 
His flesh. " a He is thus the Restorer and the means 
of communication between God and man ; and this is 
His meaning in calling Himself "the Way." "No 
man cometh to the Father but by Me." And, con- 
versely, no man receiveth from the Father but by Him. 
This general truth is expressed in several different 
parts of Holy Scripture. It is revealed in shadow in 
the dream of Jacob, in which he saw a ladder set on 
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and by 
it the angels of God ascended and descended from 
earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. b That the 

a Heb. b Gen. xxviii. 12. 



The Grace of the Son. 97 

ladder was a type of Christ, our Lord Himself teaches, 
interpreting it, as He closed His interview with Na- 
thanael : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye 
shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascend- 
ing and descending upon the Son of Man." a The 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews founds his ex- 
hortation upon the figure thus: " Having, therefore, 
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He 
hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, 
His flesh, and having an High Priest over the house of 
God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assur- 
ance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. " b 
So St. Paul, writing to his Ephesian converts, reminds 
them of the contrast between their former heathen 
darkness and their present Christian blessedness : 
"Remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in 
the flesh, ... at that time ye were without Christ, 
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel ; . . . 
but now, in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometimes were far 
off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ." A little 
further on, he refers to the same figure: "Through 
Him we both [Jew and Gentile] have access by one 
Spirit to the Father. " d And again: "In whom we 
have boldness and access with confidence by the faith 
of Him;" e which idea is expanded, in the Epistle to 
the Romans, thus: "Being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by 

a John, i. 51. b Heb. x. 19-22. c Eph. ii. 11-13. 

d Eph. ii. 18. e Eph. iii. 12. 

9* 



98 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

whom also we have access by faith into this grace 
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of 
God." a " I am the Door," says our Saviour Himself: 
"by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and 
shall go in and out and find pasture. " b 

The grace of Christ, then, for which He calls Him- 
self "the Way," is the virtue of His sacrificial death 
and priestly power. This may, indeed, seem to exhaust 
His work and comprehend all its results. For if He 
be a way by which we have access to God, and by 
which blessing is returned from God to us, our salva- 
tion is all accomplished, — we are fully restored. But, 
in truth, the different views of the office of Christ are 
only different aspects of the same whole, according as 
it is seen from different points, and in relation with 
different needs of humanity. Are we viewed as in a 
state of banishment from God, Christ is " the Way" of 
return ; are we groping in mental and spiritual dark- 
ness, He is the "Light" and the "Truth;" are we 
spiritually dead, He is the "Life." Hence, if we be 
" brought nigh" in the way, it follows that we shall be 
"walking in the light," and be made "alive from the 
dead." We cannot contemplate one view without 
finding features common to the others. The progress 
is the same along each line of advancement, — they all 
converge in the act of our Regeneration. 

Not to digress, however, the grace of Christ, " the 
way," is the virtue of His sacrificial death and priestly 
power. His priestly mediation, being the condition 
precedent of all grace whatsoever, having been estab- 

a Rom. v. 1,2. b John, x. 9. 



The Grace of the Son. 99 

lished in the eternal counsels before any grace was 
given by Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, and being also, 
through the intercession He makes in heaven, the 
means by which all blessings, spiritual and temporal, 
are* obtained for us, day by day into all the future, the 
priesthood of Christ must be commensurate with our 
salvation, even to our immortality. Hence we are 
told, "He abideth a priest continually." 3 "He hath 
an unchangeable priesthood. " b He is " a priest for- 
ever, after the order of Melchizadek." c 

The priestly office under the law, which was the 
pattern of things unseen, had three functions: 1. To 
offer the sacrifice of atonement for sin, or of thanks- 
giving for mercies. 2. To make prayer and inter- 
cession to God on behalf of the people. 3. To bless 
the people with authority on behalf of God. By the 
two former acts, taken together as essentially the same, 
is represented the mediatorial work of Christ, our great 
High Priest, directed on our behalf towards God ; in 
the latter act was foreshadowed His mediatorial work 
towards us, — comprehending together, with all exercise 
of His Kingly munificence, our absolution from our 
sins, and the "sprinkling" or cleansing our con- 
sciences from their stain, by the actual, but spiritual 
application of His blood. 

There is thus presented to our view a twofold grace 
of our High Priest : first, His Divine love, leading 
Him to give Himself for us, — in combination with His 
human sympathy, by which He ever feels for us ; and 
secondly, His gift or communication to the soul (by 



ioo Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

which it becomes regenerate) of a grace supernatural, 
derived from Himself as God and man, which, so far 
as relates to this division of our subject, is called in 
Holy Scripture "the sprinkling with His blood." 
This last is the act which seals the reconciliation. 
When the conscience is thus cleansed, and God is 
thereby reconciled to the individual believer by the 
personal appropriation to him of the atoning blood, 
then is Christ "the way;" the access to God is free 
and open, and they "who were far off" are "made 
nigh by the blood of Christ." 

This twofold grace has a fourfold operation, — a final 
observation, which enables us to understand and har- 
monize all the Scripture declarations respecting the 
Priesthood of Christ, i. He made the Atonement to 
God for us. 2. He absolves us, for God. 3. He 
entered into Heaven as our Intercessor. 4. He enters 
into our souls as our Restorer. These four particulars 
underlie all the statements of Holy Scripture. In the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, which is the inspired treatise 
that expounds systematically the doctrine of the Evan- 
gelical Priesthood, they are everywhere assumed, and 
appear throughout the whole course of the argument, 
so that for proof we need only refer to that Epistle. 

Thus, (1) for the first particular, we read in the 
very beginning of the first chapter, He " being the 
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image 
of His person, when He had by Himself (that is, by 
His sacrifice of Himself) purged our sins, sat down 
on the right hand of the Majesty on high." a And 

a Heb. i. 3. 



The Grace of the Son. 101 

again : " Every high priest taken from among men, is 
ordained for men, in things pertaining to God, that 
he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." a " Such 
an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, un- 
dented, separate from sinners, and made higher than 
the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high 
priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and 
then for the people's : for this He did once, when 
He offered up Himself. " b "For every high priest is 
ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices ; wherefore it is of 
necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. " c 
Hence, " Christ being come an High Priest of good 
things to come, by a greater and more perfect taber- 
nacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this 
building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, 
but by His own blood, He entereth in once into the 
Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for 
us." d Of such passages as these it is needless to argue 
an interpretation, so plain are they in teaching the 
sacrificial atonement made by Christ. 

2. For the second particular, His blessing of absolu- 
tion on the part of God, we have such passages as 
these : " Verily, He took not on Him the nature of 
angels ; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. 
Wherefore, in all things it behoved Him to be made 
like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful 
and faithful High Priest, in things pertaining to God, 
to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For 
in that He Himself hath suffering being tempted, He 
is able also to succor [that is, to absolve, as well as to 

a Heb. v. I. b Heb. vii. 26, 27. c Heb. viii. 3. 

d Heb. ix. n, 12. 



102 Threefold Grace of the Holy Tri?iity. 

succor in other ways] them that are tempted.' ' a "Every 
High Priest is Ordained for men . . . who can have 
compassion on the ignorant {i.e. absolving them], and 
on them that are out of the way, for that He Himself 
also is compassed with infirmity. " b 

3. For the third particular, His Intercession within 
the veil, we read more clearly, as follows: "We have 
an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the 
throne of the Majesty in the Heavens ; a minister of 
the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the 
Lord pitched, and not man." d " Christ is not entered 
unto the Holy Places made with hands, which are the 
figures of the true; but into Heaven itself: now to ap- 
pear in the presence of God for us." e "This man, 
because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable 
priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them 
to the uttermost that came unto God by Him ; seeing 
He ever liveth to make intercession for them." f " This 
man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for- 
ever, sat down on the right hand of God ; from hence- 
forth expecting until His enemies be made His foot- 
stool."* 

4. The fourth particular, the application of His 
blood, and His entrance into our souls, with restoring 
power, is declared with emphasis, thus: "If the blood 
of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprink- 
ling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the 
flesh ; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, 
through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot 

a Heb. i. 17, 18. b Ileb. v. 2. c ahjdivoc. d Heb. viii. 1,2. 
e Ileb. ix. 24. f Ileb. vii. 24, 25. s Heb. x. 12, 13. 



The Grace of the Son. 103 

to God, purge your consciences from dead works to 
serve the living God." a The point of the passage, it 
is to be noted, lies in the words, "sprinkling the un- 
clean," compared with "the blood of Christ shall 
purge your consciences," teaching most certainly that 
there is a gift of grace from Him, which may and must 
be so described ; to which effect also, the following : 
"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into 
the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living 
way which He hath consecrated for us through the 
veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having an High 
Priest over the house of God ; let us draw near, with a 
true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts 
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies 
washed with pure water. " b And still more plainly, 
that noble doxology of St. John, in the Revelations : 
" Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins 
in his own blood, . . to Him be glory and dominion 
for ever and ever." c 

Combine these four operations into one view, as the 
work of Christ's twofold grace of Divine affection, and 
actual gift, and include also His continual priesthood, 
and we have the full interpretation of His figurative ex- 
pression, "I am the way." The act of man by which 
he comes to God through Christ, the Way, is, as we 
have said, Repentance. The priesthood of our Re- 
deemer is the objective fact correlative to Repentance 
in the soul. Repentance is possible only because 
Christ has made the atonement for our sins, and inter- 
cedes for us by the virtue of His merits ; it is only 

a Heb. ix. 13, 14. b Heb. x. 19-23. c Rev. i. 5, 6, 



io4 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

complete when He has blessed us with remission of 
sins, has sprinkled us with His blood, and infused into 
us His new life for a continual principle of resistance 
to and triumph over the old life of sin and rebellion. 
By making it possible for us to be restored, He fur- 
nishes to the heart the motives of hope, if we repent, 
of fear if we remain in sin ; of love, for His love ; of 
thankfulness for the mercy of God. By giving us the 
power and fruition of repentance, He enables us to 
bring the motives into act, forsaking our sins, and 
rendering to God the allegiance of our hearts; and 
thus, "we who sometimes were far off are made nigh 
by the blood of Christ." 

We are thus able to give a more particular account of 
Repentance. The reader will recur to what has been 
said respecting the human conditions of the problem of 
restoration, — the needs of the heart, the mind, and the 
will of man, to enable him to return to God. He will 
remember that we saw the need of a motive for the 
heart ; and he will also observe the distinction that 
while the conviction of sin, of righteousness and of 
judgment is the ??iotive, repentance itself, — the giving 
to God the allegiance of the heart was asserted to be an 
act, corresponding to, and predicated upon the motive. 
This distinction is most important, both scientifically 
and practically. For to be simply under conviction, 
to be touched at heart by the preaching of the Gospel, 
to fear its threatenings and to desire its hopes, is not 
repentance. It is, indeed, the operation of the pre- 
venient grace of the Holy Spirit urging us to repent- 
ance ; but if the effect is circumscribed in the sphere 
of the emotions it does not reach to be repentance. 



The Grace of the Son. 105 

Repentance is more — it calls into operation more facul- 
ties — it is an act ; as such it includes all the parts of an 
act, and implies all its conditions. While, therefore, 
we define in few words, repentance to be the allegiance 
of the heart to God, we must remember that, as a con- 
stant act of allegiance, it is essentially an exercise of the 
will, and comprehends also a mental element co-oper- 
ating in the right direction of the heart, its withdrawal 
from earthly and sinful desires, and its elevation to 
heavenly and pure affections. In other words, true and 
complete repentance is the power of the regenerate will, 
directed by a right faith, and under the influence of 
motives derived from the preaching of the Gospel, 
withdrawing the heart from its evil propensities, and 
turning it towards the law and will of God. As an act, 
then, Repentance includes faith and obedience, and 
issues in Divine love ; — for the Christian is an indivisi- 
ble whole, just as the Redeemer's work is one whole, 
and therefore the different views of it are mutually in- 
clusive. Repentance is both a constant, all-pervad- 
ing act of self-renunciation, and a continual series of 
acts done in obedience to the commands of God. As 
the one, it revolutionizes the inner life; as the other, 
it controls and directs anew the outer life, and in doing 
so, is itself confirmed and made perfect. 

True repentance thus pervades the whole nature, and 
extends over the whole mortal life of man. Its history, 
therefore, is divided into two great periods, that pre- 
ceding, and that following, regeneration. It must exist 
incipiently and progressively before our regeneration, 
to make us capable subjects of that great gift. So ex- 
isting, it is wrought by the prevenient grace of the 



106 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Holy Spirit, by ways and means which He knows ; but 
which are to us as " the wind that bloweth where it 
listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but can not tell 
whence it cometh and whither it goeth." After regen- 
eration it must exist continuously, still the work of the 
same Holy Spirit, — its office then to keep us from sin, 
sorrowful for our lapses, steadfast in our renunciation, 
untiring in our resistance. In the former state its pre- 
vailing character is sorrowful, fearful, burdened with its 
load, and waiting to receive the gift of remission at its 
regeneration ; in the latter state, it is forgiven, hope- 
ful, loving, humble, ever watchful against a relapse. 

The view, therefore, of the grace of Christ as our 
High Priest (and this remark completes this part of our 
subject) which is presented to the truly repentant, while 
yet unregenerate, is His atonement offered up on Cal- 
vary, and His present Intercession ; after his regenera- 
tion, the Christian adds to this, his knowledge of abso- 
lution or remission of his sins, his faith in the Divine 
gift applied at his regeneration to his soul, cleansing it 
by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The media- 
torial work thus complete, he is assured of his recon- 
ciliation to, and his participation in the grace of, God 
the Father — he is in a "state of salvation." 

II. Complete, however, as this view of the mediato- 
rial office of our Saviour seems to be, He has thought 
good to add to His revelation of Himself "the Way," 
the declaration that he is also " the Truth" — thus re- 
quiring us to contemplate Him, and our relation to 
Him, on a different side, viewing His Person and His 
work as related to the thoughts and mind of man. and 
our appropriation of the gift of salvation, as an act of 



The Grace of the Son. 107 

faith, as well as of repentance ; He being both Prophet 
and Truth, as well as Priest and Sacrifice. 

The reader will observe here also, that we speak of 
belief as an act of faith, in the same way, as we just now 
spoke of repentance as an act, — meaning thereby, that 
faith is not merely an impression upon the mind, but a 
voluntary act of allegiance, in which both the heart and 
will concur to direct the mind aright. "With the 
heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the 
mouth, confession is made unto salvation." It is im- 
possible, therefore, to have a true, complete, and perfect 
faith in Christ without true repentance, or before we 
have been made partakers of the life through regenera- 
tion ; since it is this regeneration which gives spiritual 
power to the will, besides making the Truth a matter 
personal to, and operative in ourselves, incorporate (as 
it were) with us, and not an abstract, external, far-off 
Truth. This needs especially to be borne in mind, 
since, otherwise, dwelling on the lofty expressions in 
which Holy Scripture indulges with regard to faith, 
but forgetting that it includes repentance, men have 
fallen into the Antinomian heresy; and, forgetting 
that it includes regeneration, they have denied the ne- 
cessity of the Holy Sacraments of our Lord's institution. 
Whereas, the Apostles considering faith to be inclu- 
sive, all that they say of justification by faith only is 
true in its fullest and most absolute sense, and yet is 
fully reconcilable with all that is attributed to any 
other parts of the Christian scheme. 

Passages of Holy Scripture which reiterate and ex- 
pand the statement that Christ is the Truth, are such 
as follow: "In Him was life, and the life was the 



108 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

light of men."" ''That was the true light, which 
lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. " b 
"lam the light of the world ; he that followeth me 
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of 
life." c " While ye have light [the Saviour is referring 
to Himself], believe in the light, that ye may be the 
children of light. " d "God, who commanded the light 
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to 
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in 
the face of Jesus Christ." 6 "He is the image of the 
Invisible God;" f He is "the brightness of the 
Father's glory, and the express image of His person, " B 
the manifestation of whatever truth may be known of 
the Father. His name is, "The Word of God." h 
" In whom are laid up all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge."' 

Other passages sum up the whole of religious knowl- 
edge in the term, " believing in the Lord Jesus Christ," 
and its correlative expressions; thus as fully concen- 
trating the whole of truth in the person of the Saviour, 
as for example : " Whosoever believeth in Him, should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." j " He that be- 
lieveth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that 
believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath 
of God abideth on Him." k " A man is not justified by 
the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." 1 
" The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto 

a John, i. 4. e II. Cor. iv. 6. * Col. ii. 3. 

b John, i. 9. f Col. i. 15. J John, iii. 15. 

c John, viii. 12. s Heb. i. 3. k John, iii. 36. 

d John, xii. 36. h Rev. xix. 13. ' Gal. ii. 16. 



The Grace of the Son. 109 

salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. " a So 
also all those texts which speak of " preaching Christ," 
meaning thereby, preaching the whole Gospel. 

From the use of such a mode of speech, commonly 
and familiarly, we may see how this idea filled the 
minds of the writers of Holy Scripture, so as to under- 
lie it, and be assumed in it everywhere, coming to the 
surface in these detached passages. Not, however, as 
though, all truth being " in Christ," it were indifferent 
what belief we have respecting the other Persons in the 
Godhead, or the other beings in the Creation ; but 
rather that other persons and other beings are only 
rightly known by being manifested in, or seen in rela- 
tion with Him. As He is not identical with other 
beings who coexist with Him, other things must be 
known as well as He ; but the Truth of them is only 
known through Him. He is the Keystone of the 
arch of knowledge, which binds all things in the sym- 
metry, and self-sustaining power of truth, — take Him 
away, and they drop into the confusion and disorder 
of falsehood. 

The weighty declarations of Holy Scripture cannot 
be understood as teaching less than two things: (1) 
that our Lord Jesus Christ is in His own person the 
principal object of the Christian's knowledge, as being 
"God manifest in the flesh," and therefore revealing 
the Father and the Holy Spirit to*the world ; and (2) 
that He is the centre from which Truth radiates upon 
all other things ; so that even the beings of the created 
universe only manifest themselves truly when they re- 

a II. Tim. iii. 15. 



no Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

fleet His light, and are apprehended in their relation 
to Him, "by whom all things were made," and "by 
whom all things consist." 

Mutually inclusive as are all true views of Christ, 
and all Christian acts, it is evident that what has been 
said concerning the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ 
is a necessary part of that Truth, which is presented 
to our faith. A knowledge of Him as "the Way," 
is, so far, a knowledge of Him as the Truth in the 
most essential particular. What has been said, there- 
fore, on that subject will be understood, without reitera- 
tion, to have its place in this division ; so also the 
statements made with respect to His Divine person- 
ality, His coexistence with the Father and the Holy 
Spirit, His incarnation and subsistence forever here- 
after in two natures, Divine and human. And so also, 
what will hereafter be shown to be implied in His de- 
claration that He is "the Life," is a part of that 
Truth which we receive when we believe in Him. 

The Incarnation, indeed, is the centre of the whole 
body of truth; not only as being the most wonderful 
mystery upon which thought can dwell, but also as 
being the fact which makes it possible for us to live. 
Hence so much of the Creed is taken up with the con- 
fession of His Being as God Incarnate, and of the acts 
He performed while present on earth. We believe in 
Him as God and man ; and thus the incarnation is the 
well-spring of the grace of faith, as of all other grace. 

Into the depths of this mystery it is not for us to 
penetrate. We may well be content to be ignorant 
how it can be a truth, being satisfied that so it 
is ; and that, therefore, Christ is, so to speak, the 



The Grace of the Son. 1 1 1 

point where God takes hold on the Creation, and 
when the Creation reaches up to God. But it is given 
us to behold how from this centre truth irradiates up- 
wards to God, and downwards to man. The Incarna- 
tion is itself a twofold Revelation : (a) of God as made 
manifest to human conceptions; and (Ji) of human 
perfection in the sight of God. 

(a) The Persons of the Holy Trinity being the same 
in essence and attributes, equal in power, having the 
same law, the same moral and spiritual qualities, the 
same character (if we may so say), — differing only in 
the subordination of one to the other, as already ex- 
plained; it follows that if one Person be manifested to 
human conceptions, so far also are the other Persons. 
In this sense, the Incarnation of the Second Person of 
the Holy Trinity is a manifestation of the whole God- 
head; for His person, being the "express image " a of 
the person of the Father, the Divine character which 
He manifests is the character of the Father and of the 
Holy Spirit as well as His own. It is admitted that 
the Divine nature is in itself incomprehensible. The 
adequate self-knowledge which the Divine Intelligence 
possesses needs translation and reduction into human 
thought to be transferred to human minds. It has 
pleased God, therefore, that the manifestation of Him- 
self should be made by His Son becoming human, 
that we may thus see the Divine itself under a human 
form. 

This is what is meant by the scriptural declaration, 
"God was manifest in the flesh.'" 3 The Divine 

a Heb. i. 3. b I. Tim. iii. 16. 



ii2 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Essence itself was not made visible at the Incarnation ; 
but the Divine character was, the Divine attributes, 
the Divine laws, the Divine dealings with man, the 
Divine mind and Spirit, by the Divine Person becoming 
man. The substantial, actual union of the Divine and 
human natures in the person of Christ was an invisible 
union, and (it is almost needless to remark) the word 
"manifestation" is not to be taken as asserting that 
the Divine nature or essence became visible by union 
with humanity. No one who saw our Lord Jesus 
Christ after the flesh would see more than the visible 
part of His manhood; no one could perceive where 
(if we may so say without irreverence) the Divine 
nature joined, or how it was united to the human. 
That is an incomprehensible mystery. We cannot, 
when the fact is revealed to us, comprehend how such 
an union could take place — how Divinity could inhabit 
a human form. With respect to our understanding, or 
our imagination, such a question is like that respecting 
the union of soul and body in ourselves ; which is a 
truth, not so stupendous, indeed, as the mystery of the 
Incarnation, but fully as inexplicable. 

W T hen we speak, then, of the manifestation of the 
Godhead in the face of Jesus Christ, we mean that in 
Christ, and through Him, we know what otherwise 
we could not have known of the attributes of God, 
of His dealings with us, of His will concerning us, of 
His judgment and mercy towards us. The manifesta- 
tion of God by the manhood of Jesus Christ is like the 
manifestation of our souls to one another by means of 
our bodies. We do not see one another's souls ; and 
yet we know of them, their feelings, tempers, and d:s- 



The Grace of the Son. 113 

positions towards us, their thoughts and intentions. 
They are manifested by that incomprehensible action of 
the soul on the body, which we cannot reach by anal- 
ysis nor anatomy. The soul manifests itself by giving 
life to the body ; by making it its instrument. "So our 
Lord Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God to us, by 
being bodily, mentally, morally, humanly, the instru- 
ment of the Divine nature, which invisibly inhabited 
His visible form ; by showing in Himself the Divine 
character, in His acts, the Divine operations, princi- 
ples, laws, in such manner that man can grasp them, 
can know God in them, and become Godlike by fol- 
lowing Christ. 

Christ is thus the Truth, because He is the Revelation, 
as well as the Revealer. We speak popularly, and, for 
practical purposes, correctly, of the Holy Bible as the 
revelation of God, as the word of God ; but it may be 
well to recall that in strict and proper language, it is 
not so much the Revelation itself, as the inspired record 
of that Revelation. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Reve- 
lation of God. The Bible is our spiritual guide because 
it shows Him to us. He is the exemplar of the Divine 
Mind. What we know of God, we know clearly and 
truly and sufficiently, only by knowing His life on 
earth. The light that streams from Him is the light 
of God. What is in Heaven above we know, if we 
have learned what He was on earth. 

If we have paid any attention to the speculations of 
philosophers respecting the nature and being of God, 
we must have been struck with the unsatisfactory nature 
of their conclusions, and the difficulty, nay, the impos- 
sibility, thus made evident of knowing the infinite and 



ii4 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

absolute perfection of God. Philosophy has no terms 
'by which to describe infinite or absolute justice and 
virtue. It has no conceptions by which to contem- 
plate, out of all relation, in the unchangeableness of 
eternity, those ultimate principles which govern the 
relations of a transitory and mutable life. It is start- 
ling, if it is true, to say that God, the absolute Being, 
has no human virtue ; a philosophy which thus ends in 
negation is of no practical value in determining what is 
the character of God. But if we cannot know what 
God's perfections are in themselves, we must know, as 
the next possible thing, what human conceptions of 
virtue, holiness, justice, will stand as correct represent- 
atives before our minds of those infinite perfections. 
Our ideas of God, to be receivable by us, must be trans- 
lated from the infinite, absolute reality, into the form 
and likeness of humanity. They must be reduced from 
the infinite to the finite ; they must be presented to us 
in definite relations, shown in acts with which we have 
something in common, given in the way of example. 
We must be able to refer to some acts which are intel- 
ligible in their moral relations, and be able to say, 
"These are the acts of God, under circumstances in 
which we may be placed ; these were the rules of Di- 
vine life, when a Divine Person was in our condition ; 
this is the Divine measure of human thought and life." 
The infinite justice of the Absolute Being must be trans- 
lated into human justice, infinite love into human love, 
infinite holiness into human holiness, infinite law into 
human law, to be intelligible to us. This is done for 
us in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot 
make the translation for ourselves. Fallen and erring 



The Grace of the Son. 115 

as we are, we cannot take our own human natures to be 
for us the correct image of the Divine attributes ; we 
cannot say that our own untutored conceptions of what 
is just, or holy, or pure, or lawful, are correct repre- 
sentations of God's perfect judgments. We cannot 
affirm that what we consider just and right action, under 
the influence of our selfish and sensual passions, is just 
and right in the sight of God ; or that (to speak plainly) 
God would act as we do, — when we know how often 
we regret what we have done. Hence we cannot argue, 
from the fallen moral basis of our own nature, what 
God's nature is. We must get beyond ourselves. We 
must have some example by which to rectify our mis- 
takes. We must have God Himself in the likeness of 
man, since we cannot know God from our own broken 
image and marred likeness of Him. His glory, there- 
fore, was manifested in the person of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. He is "the Truth" which we know of God. 
The Gospels have their inestimable value, because they 
preserve to us the lineaments of Christ ; the whole 
Bible has its priceless worth, because it is the expansion 
of the Gospel, the reduplication of His likeness, in 
which the faithful behold 

" Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end." 

And so we have "the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." In Him 
the likeness of God is reduced to a size which we can 
receive, and still remains perfect. 

And as He is thus the Revelation of the Attributes 
of God, so is His Incarnation also the evidence or 



n6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

proof to us of that great doctrine of the Holy Trinity, 
which, with the Incarnation, makes up the very matter 
and substance of our faith. I do not say that without 
the Incarnation God could not have made this truth 
evident to the mind of man ; nor do I mean that in 
logical statements of the doctrine, and its logical proof, 
stress is laid upon the Incarnation itself as a necessary 
evidence, except as connected with words spoken by 
the Incarnate Son. Those great doctors who have 
stated the logical argument upon Holy Scripture, do 
not formally support the proposition, that the doctrine 
of the Holy Trinity must be true, because " God was 
manifest in the flesh." But the practical and real ar- 
gument in all minds, — the conviction underlying all 
the logical arguments, the very centre and essence of 
them all, drawn, as they all must be, from Holy Scrip- 
ture, is this : " The doctrine of the Holy Trinity must 
be true, because the Second Person of the Holy Trinity 
was Incarnate among men." 

(b) Our Lord Jesus Christ, again, is the pattern and 
exemplar of man, as he should be, in the sight of God, 
and also the evidence what he is in that sight. 

"When the fulness of time was come, God sent 
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law" 
" He became obedicjit unto death." That is, He took 
upon Himself, with the form of a man, the state also 
and condition of a man, its duties and its obligations, 
as completely as if He had been none other than the 
son of man and woman. He fulfilled all the law, both 
in outward blamelessness of conduct, and with spiritual 
perfection of submission ; and thus He became to us 
the example what our perfection is in the sight of God. 



The Grace of the Son. 117 

It differs, in some respects, from the native human 
idea of perfection. Notice this, for brevity's sake, in 
only two points. 

He was poor and self-denying, a "man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief," not having where to lay 
His head, despising the riches and glory of this world ; 
and all this voluntarily, as an act of humility and self- 
denial; submitting to indignity, reproach, and perse- 
cution without retaliation, — thus showing it to be a 
part of the perfection of humanity to be humble and 
self-denying. The native human idea, on the contrary, 
sees perfection in pomp and self-gratification, so that 
they who have most means and capacity to indulge 
themselves are called "the better classes," and "our 
best society." 

He was obedient ; and here, again, He contradicted 
our common ideas. We think it the glorious thing of 
life to have our own way, to do what we will, to have 
means to carry out our purposes and designs. But 
Christ came on earth to do, not His own will, but His 
Father's. "My meat is to do the will of Him who 
sent me," is His own word. " He was obedient unto 
death," says His Apostle. In the mystery of His 
being, His Divine will must always have concurred with 
the will of His Father, as being one with it ; but His 
human will shrank oftentimes (and what wonder!) 
from the bitter cup He was to undergo; yet in all 
things He surrendered Himself — though He shud- 
dered — freely, unreservedly, to do His Father's will. 
Now it is not, perhaps, sufficiently noticed by pious 
readers of Holy Scripture, that the will of God towards 
Him, after He assumed humanity, was directed by those 



n8 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

universal principles by which God governs all man- 
kind ; so that, though He stands alone and unap- 
proachable in the magnitude of the benefits He obtained 
for mankind, and in the righteous purity of His self- 
sacrifice, yet, in respect of the principle of obedience, 
He was on a level with His brethren in the flesh. All 
that Christ did for mankind, He did as a duty, as an 
obligation, which became such when He took human 
nature. The all-inclusive act of free grace was His 
willingly becoming man ; but when He had done this, 
He (as it were) put the Divine under human law j so 
that what obligations lay upon man according to the 
power of man, He, having superhuman power, met in 
a superhuman manner, being, nevertheless, ''under the 
law." As, for example, thus: By that law of human 
sympathy and social communion by which we are held 
in the bonds of a common brotherhood, — that law which 
is made . objective in the Divine command, "Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," — the duty of help 
in difficulty, of comfort in sorrow, of charity in sick- 
ness or in want, became as binding upon Him, the 
man, as upon every one else who partook of that 
human nature ; and therefore, in helping the afflicted, 
in healing the sick, in comforting the sorrowful, and 
in providing for the hungry, all by miraculous means, 
He was acting, though by Divine power, under the law 
of humanity, giving "what He had/' on the principle 
of obedience, as well as of love, because it was His 
duty so to do. And that, not as His peculiar, indi- 
vidual duty, under a covenant of obedience singular to 
Himself, as if isolated by His Divinity from mankind, 
but as verily and indeed in the " form of a servant," 



The Grace of the Son. 119 

upon the same principle on which His disciple acted 
when he raised the lame man with the words, " Silver 
and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee," 
— on the same principle on which any of us must act 
when met by the calls of the suffering. And if we may 
penetrate into the mystery of that sublimest act of all, 
His offering Himself upon the Cross, and apply to it 
the principle of obedience in illustration of human 
duty, we may say of that also, that therein He acted 
on the same principle, — offering up His Divine worth 
for His brethren, as a duty appertaining to the man- 
hood He had assumed, by its relationship with the 
fallen creatures who needed that redemption. For if 
it had been possible that a mere man, one of ourselves, 
could have redeemed the world by the offering of his 
life, there can be no question that it would have been 
his duty under the law of love ; and therefore, the 
same law applying, when the only sinless man who 
ever lived had that power of atonement, because He 
was also Divine, He became the Sacrifice, on the prin- 
ciple of duty; " being found in fashion as a man, He 
became obedient unto death, even the death of the 
Cross." 

Christ is then the truth of human nature, so abso- 
lutely and so purely, that so far as we can, under the 
illuminating power of Divine grace, by constant medi- 
tation and study, realize the character of His life on 
earth, as a human life, as well as a divine, we shall 
have the perfect rule of all human conduct before God. 
If we were able .to answer accurately and infallibly 
with reference to every important event of life, the 
question, "How would our Lord Jesus Christ have 



1 20 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

acted under these circumstances had He been placed in 
them?" and if we were able to, and did act according 
to the rule so elicited, we should be perfect. So the 
Apostle St. John argues in relation to the future world : 
"We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He 
is." His Person, then, it is not too much to say, is 
the only complete and all-sufficient rule of our lives 
before God. His precepts and teachings are, indeed, 
a perfect rule ; but they need to be informed by a 
living faith in Him, — they are only a part of the law 
by which the Christian is governed, only a part of the 
truth which he must behold. We must live according 
to them to the minutest letter, since "not a jot or a 
tittle shall in any wise pass from the law till all be ful- 
filled," — since "Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but His words shall not pass away." It is idle to speak 
of following Christ, and yet disregarding any of His 
spoken commands, as if Christ could be inconsistent 
with Himself; yet to rest in the letter is not enough. 
We must have the letter, but we must have the Spirit 
as well. The letter is but one of the indications of the 
"mind of Christ," and it is that mind which is the 
ultimate object of our research. "The words that I 
speak unto you," said He, " they are Spirit and they 
are life;" but they are this, by leading us beyond 
themselves to Him and the true faith in Him, as the 
exemplar of true obedience, the rule of true life, the 
law of redeemed humanity. 

c. But further : Our Lord Jesus Christ is also the 
evidence what human nature actually is in the sight of 
God. We have in Him not only the realization of an 
ideal of perfect humanity under the conditions of 



The Grace of the Son. 121 

mortal existence in such a world as ours is, but also in 
His incarnation and death the dominant fact accord- 
ing to which we must arrange all our knowledge and 
observation of ourselves as we actually are. The 
moral quality of our actions is settled, not by specula- 
tions in morals, seeking for abstract grounds of action, 
not by Platonic, or Aristotelian, or Stoic, or Epicu- 
rean theories, but by their agreement or disagreement 
with His example and teachings, and the principles 
they disclose. What is and what is not sin ; what is 
the future consequence of sin; what right and duty 
are; and how far we fall short of our duty, — these 
questions are to be decided by our knowledge of 
Christ "the truth." The moral history of man, as a 
race or as an individual, is comprehensible only by the 
light of his coming into the world ; and his state at 
any given period is fixed by his relation to the Gospel. 
What view we understand Revelation to give of the 
origin of our moral history has been seen in the dis- 
cussions of a former chapter, which it is not necessary 
here to repeat. Whether that, or any other account, 
be the truth, must be decided by the perfect harmony 
of the system in which it is contained with the reve- 
lation of the Redeemer incarnate ; just as the truth of 
our modern account of the solar system is demon- 
strated by the completeness, the comprehensiveness, 
and the simplicity with which it harmonizes all the 
phenomena of the planetary world on the heliocentric 
theory. As it would be the height of absurdity to 
attempt to frame a planetary theory without the sun, 
so no account of human nature and human position 
can be a true one which does not harmonize with the 



122 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

Incarnation and Redemption of God the Son. Hence 
all researches into, all observations and experiences of, 
human nature, physical, physiological, metaphysical, 
however accurately registered as separate facts, can 
only be bound together in a true system by putting 
this fact at the center, and searching till we find the 
true relation of the others to our faith in Christ. By 
the revealed truth, the great and difficult fact of evil 
in humanity is accounted for and shown to be accord- 
ant with the goodness of God, because of the univer- 
sality of the Remedy offered to man's acceptance; its 
origin by the fall is declared, its subordination to an 
end in our probation for another life, the cause and 
use of the mingled web of joy and sorrow with which 
we are clothed in this world, — all these are made appa- 
rent, and the solutions of the perplexing questions to 
which they give rise are demonstrated more clearly in 
each succeeding age as we advance in true knowledge. 
For example : all the facts deduced by successive inves- 
tigations into the abnormal workings of our fallen na- 
ture and its hereditary transmission take their Christian 
position as exponents of the "law of the flesh," which 
warreth against the law of the Spirit ; because, if the 
record of Redemption be true, the fact of a fall must 
be true also ; if "in Christ all are made alive," it is 
equally true that "in Adam all die." So, too, the 
area of the field assigned to human freedom by Divine 
Providence, and its limitation by the laws of the 
human constitution and of the constitution of the uni- 
verse, by the necessary operation of the various facul- 
ties of man, by the diverse circumstances in which he 
is placed, and the influence of those circumstances 



The Grace of the Son. 123 

upon him, are legitimate objects of philosophical ob- 
servation and analysis ; but they must be appre- 
hended in their true connection with the coming 
of Christ and the truths of the Gospel. Thus all 
inquiries in the field of human science will enlarge 
our knowledge and make it more accurate by show- 
ing us the positive effects of the Fall upon the various 
parts of our being, the limitations of our freedom 
and their nature, because of which we are finite and 
not infinite beings, the laws of the Creation which 
supplement the facts of Revelation, and the means by 
which our position and our laws of action and recep- 
tivity may be made auxiliary to the designs of the 
Gospel for our restoration. If human nature be finite, 
its limitations may be inquired into ; if it be fallen, the 
nature and extent of its deterioration in the individual 
or the mass is a subject of possible study ; and if it be 
capable of Providential government and ultimate res- 
toration, the laws under which the restoration is ap- 
plied and in harmony with which it works, are at least 
probable additions to our Christian knowledge, as in- 
dustry and faith together explore the regions of human 
science. But in such investigations the totality of 
truth can never have been arrived at until the result 
comprehended is the Divine system of which Christ is 
the Head, "Who is over all from the beginning," and 
"in Whom all fulness dwells." 

The Incarnation of the Son of God, again, is the 
one fact which must be considered, in order to decide 
the questions that have been raised concerning the suc- 
cessive communications of the Divine Creator to His 



i 24 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

human creatures. We cannot obtain a true knowledge 
what Holy Scripture is, or how to interpret it, unless 
we study it "according to the analogy of the faith." 
In this relation, as in deciding upon the present con- 
dition of human nature, the Incarnation has the power 
of a fact in relation with other facts, of an act which 
has its historic place among the affairs of the world. 
Every fact has an absolute power of evidence which 
cannot be contradicted when it is apprehended in its 
true relation with its fellows. All our philosophy be- 
gins with the observation of them, proceeds with their 
classification, and seeks its end by induction or deduc- 
tion from them. They control us by the laws of our 
intellectual being, according to which we must allow 
every fact its place in the system of truth, and accept 
it as defining the relations of others with itself and 
with each other. Hence facts are evidence. And if 
this be true of subordinate facts, how much more of 
the Incarnation, the principal, the all-controlling fact 
of human history ! Hence, before we can enter upon 
the examination of the Revelation purporting to come 
from God, we must accept this fact, we must have the 
faith in Christ, and it must guide our studies, or no 
research and no ingenuity will lead us to a true con- 
clusion. 

All persons of any theological reading are familiar, 
to some extent, with the (so-called) Rationalistic 
hypotheses put forth of late years, concerning the 
origin and nature of the books of Holy Scripture, and 
with the methods of reasoning by which it is endeav- 
ored to support them. Whether any minor truths are 
brought to light or not, by these methods, they all 



The Grace of the Son. 125 

start with 2ipetitio principii ; they assume at the outset, 
as the base of the argument, the conclusion to be 
arrived at, and therefore reason in a circle. However 
careful the reasoning, false premises must issue in false 
conclusions ; but few sophisms are as transparent as 
those of the Rationalistic commentator on Holy Scrip- 
ture. Assuming that the books of Holy Scripture are 
naturally produced, he argues thence to the conclusion 
that they are not supernaturally produced. He sets 
them on the same level with other ancient documents, 
and from that premise urges a denial of their superior 
authority; then, because those documents are con- 
demned of advancing myths or fables when they treat 
of the supernatural, he refuses to receive the super- 
natural intimations of Holy Scripture on the ground 
of this assumed analogy. But the analogy itself is the 
very thing to be denied on the ground of the Incarna- 
tion, since those books which are inseparably con- 
nected with the Incarnation, either in the way of 
prophecy or inspired history, are, by that relation, 
removed from the level of all other writings. If the 
Rationalist begin by denying that the Incarnation as a 
dogma should have any influence upon his judgment of 
the Bible, he will naturally throw out every reference 
of prophecy, every record of miracle, which refers to 
the Incarnation as a fact ; whereas, if he accept it as a 
fact, it must have its influence as a dogma. 

The way in which Rationalism approaches Holy 
Scripture is this : It first investigates the traditions, 
remains, and records of the various heathen nations of 
antiquity, and, observing that in them there are many 
things incredible as they stand, many legends, alle- 



126 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity* 

gories, and myths, — it accounts for their existence by 
the operation of certain real or supposed tendencies of 
human nature, as the love of the marvellous, or national 
feeling, or the attempt to supply lost links of tradition 
by imagination, or the tendency to cast moral and 
religious teaching into a dramatic form. It then draws 
by induction the inference that all human records and 
traditions are necessarily wrought over in the same 
way, and therefore that all supernatural relations are 
to be accounted for by the same principles. Hence it 
argues, because matters of a supernatural aspect, which 
are clearly false, are contained in the myths of anti- 
quity, therefore matters supernatural in Holy Scripture 
are to be judged only by the light derived from the 
study of heathenism. And it is evident that if Holy 
Scripture is the product of humanity only, it must be 
judged by the analogy of other human writings ; hence 
the supernatural relations it contains will be discredited, 
unless it can be shown that the books it contains are 
not of the same class with those other writings from 
which the critical rules have been derived. 

But the evidence that Holy Scripture does thus differ 
the Rationalist altogether refuses to receive ; he will 
not permit it to be offered. He protests that the dogma 
of the Incarnation of the Son, and the Inspiration of 
the Spirit of God, ought not to influence the investiga- 
tion. Whereas, if they are facts (as they are), they must 
influence the investigation ; for if the Scripture is only 
human, it may be mythical, but not if it be Divine. 
If it is only human, there is no more evidence of the 
supernatural in Scripture than in the traditions of 
heathenism, beyond the verisimilitude of the story, — 



The Grace of the Son. 127 

whereas, if it be Divine, it must of necessity contain 
supernatural relations. It is a preliminary question, 
therefore, whether Holy Scripture is Divine or human, 
— or rather, whether it is exclusively human, or both 
human and Divine. If it be a special Divine Revela- 
tion, it is separate from other records, above their 
analogies, not to be judged by them ; it is the criterion 
by which they are to be judged. Now the fact which 
does separate the Bible from all other books, is its 
relation to the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
to which all the record points, and with which it closes. 
The Incarnation is a fact. It cannot be a myth. It 
belongs to times confessedly historic; and therefore 
the Gospels cannot be clouded as the Book of Genesis 
is, with doubt and disputation. It is a fact never re- 
produced in the history of the world \ and therefore it 
places the records of the Jewish people, among whom 
He came, in a class by themselves, with respect to the 
supernatural, subjecting them to higher than merely 
human laws. This fact must guide our judgment of 
Holy Scripture. If the Son of God were made man 
for the salvation of the world (as He was) His life de- 
manded an inspired record ; and the inspired record 
must be altogether a true record. 

Nor is it reasoning in a circle to say that we believe 
in the Son of God on the testimony of Holy Scripture, 
and that we believe the Inspiration of Holy Scripture, 
because we believe in the Son of God. For the great 
facts which prove Christ to be the only-begotten Son 
of God, His miracles, His Resurrection, corroborating 
His claims made throughout the whole of His teach- 
ing, were such as would be remembered by the original 



128 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

witnesses, by the natural powers of memory, even with- 
out inspiration. But these main facts being true, and 
the Divinity of our Lord acknowledged on their evi- 
dence, there was evident need of Inspiration to recall, 
and guard from misconception, the less memorable de- 
tails of the teaching He intended to transmit to pos- 
terity. We argue from the truth of the greater facts, 
naturally observed and naturally remembered, to the 
Deity of our Lord; from His Deity to the Divinity and 
uniqueness of His Gospel ; from that to the truth of 
the minor details; and so to the Inspiration of the 
whole. And this argument is irrefragable. For, if God 
sent His Son to be the object of faith, it is certainly 
most reasonable that He should send His Spirit to in- 
spire a true record of Him who is to be believed in, — 
even did we not possess the actual promise of the 
Saviour that the Spirit should be sent to " recall all 
things to the remembrance" of the Apostles. Thus 
our faith in Christ proves the Inspiration of the New 
Testament (for the same reasoning must be extended 
to the Acts, and to the Epistles, and Apocalypse) ; and 
from the New Testament we reason back to the Old ; 
since its inspiration is everywhere inferred by the New. 
Hence, before the inquirer after truth can approach 
the record of Holy Scripture, he must assign it its 
place alone, as a Divine Revelation ; and thus the 
truth of our Lord Jesus Christ enables us to get at the 
truth of all Holy Scripture. Then, with this guiding 
light, it becomes a subject of legitimate inquiry, how 
far the Divine will permitted the laws of the human 
mind to find expression in the word; how far knowl- 
edge was conveyed to the Inspired writer by ordinary 



The Grace of the Son. 129 

avenues of information, how far by extraordinary, and 
in what state the text has been transmitted to our own 
times. 

The inquiries entered upon in this spirit will add 
further meaning to the declaration "I am the Truth," 
by showing that our Lord, the ever-blessed Word, is 
the object ever before the eye of faith in all the varied 
contents of both Old and New Testaments ; that He 
is the Person who reveals Himself and the Godhead 
therein, both immediately and mediately ; that He is 
(so to speak) the substa?ice, of which Holy Scripture is 
the phenomenon. 

This is self-evident in the New Testament and needs 
no demonstration. It is equally true of the Old. The 
Old Testament History, for example, — what is it but a 
Divine Epic, having, for its twofold argument, man's 
sin in the past, and his redemption then future ? The 
Fall is its beginning, the Redemption its end, its middle 
the result of the one and the preparation for the other. 
The Creation of the world and of man, the temptation 
and the fall, the promise of a Redeemer, the increase 
of the human race and the development of sin, the 
division of mankind into two parts, — worshippers of 
God and apostates, — children, respectively, of Seth 
and Cain, the mingling of the two, the consequent 
corruption of the better by the worse, the destruction 
of the world by the flood, the salvation of Noah, that 
the promise might not fail, the second corruption of 
man by the workings of his fallen nature, the choice 
of the family of Abraham to be the repository of true 
religion, the increase of that family into a nation, the 
promise of Christ again in that family and nation, 



130 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

their law, the Divine intercourse with them, their 
various transgressions, punishment and repentance, the 
renewal of the promise from time to time, the guardian 
care of God over them, until, in "the fulness of time," 
He sent forth His Son, — this is the course of that his- 
tory. Is it not all summed up in the one sentence of 
St. Paul, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are 
made alive?" 

In like manner the prophecies and the religious 
writings of all kinds which make up the collection pre- 
served with so great care by the Jewish Church, with 
their types, their ceremonies, their hopes, their aspira- 
tions, all refer to the coming of Christ, and the king- 
dom to be set up by Him. The bond of union of all 
the varied contents of the Old Testament is the an- 
ticipation of the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. In 
the eloquent language of one 3 not long dead: "Expec- 
tation is the inward spirit of the Old Testament, as 
fulfilment of the New. Wonderful itself, its function 
clearly is to testify wonders more august to come. 
From Moses to Malachi, these Hebrew Scriptures are, 
as it were, one long-drawn sigh of sorrowful hope; 
while, to make the purposed lesson of imperfection 
more complete, the same testimony is uttered from 
every rank and state of humanity ; for of what variety 
of human fortune will you not find an example there ? 
Not from Jeremiah in his dungeon alone, but from the 
gorgeous palace of their mightiest king, at the most 
consummate hour they record of earthly prosperity, 
comes forth the mournful strain (it is the voice, not of 

a The Rev. Wtn. Archer Butler, Sermon XIV, vol. i. 



The Grace of the Son. 131 

Jewish, but of human nature): 'Vanity of vanities, 
all is vanity. ... I have seen all the works that are 
done under the sun ; and behold all is vanity and vexa- 
tion of spirit.' . . . Not from insulated predic- 
tions alone, not from separate types alone, not from 
occasional allusions, but from the whole spirit and 
tendency and bearing of the Hebrew Scriptures was 
the Lord Jesus Christ justified when He declared that 
'They are they which testify of Him,' that, disjointed 
from Him, they were a fair and elaborate structure, 
doubtless, but shadowy, nevertheless, and unsubstan- 
tial ; while, seen in the light that His coming flashed 
back upon that strange story of four thousand years, 
every page sparkled with illumination, every sentence 
quickened with meaning..' ' 

There is still another view to be taken of the rela- 
tion of our Lord to the Holy Scripture. He is not 
only the one prophesied of and pointed to, but He is 
also the Revealer of all the Truth made known by 
them; so that He is the beginning and the end, "the 
first and the last" of Holy Scripture in every sense. 

Various passages in the earlier records intimate that 
God was manifested to human vision before the Son 
was born into the world. He appeared to Abraham 
on various occasions, as at the time of the destruction 
of Sodom and Gomorrah ; to Jacob, as when He wres- 
tled with him ; to Moses in the burning bush and on 
Mount Sinai ; to all the congregation of Israel at the 
time of the giving of the ten commandments. There 
are several accounts of the appearance of an uncreated 
"Angel of the Lord," who speaks in the person of 
God Himself. These all have been abundantly proved 



132 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

by the theologians to have been revelations of the God- 
head in the person of the Son, under such form as He 
was pleased to manifest Himself; and they lead us to 
expect that He would be the direct Revealer of the 
great body of supernatural truth which the Bible con- 
tains. 

Accordingly, we are to understand that the gener- 
ality of those places where it is said, "The Word of 
the Lord came" unto one or other of the prophets, as- 
sert that the matter following was directly revealed by 
that Person whom St. John, in his gospel, calls " the 
Word," that is, by the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. 
That "The Word" is a personal being was discerned 
by older Jews, the Chaldee paraphrasts, Philo, and 
others, and is placed beyond a doubt by the declara- 
tion of St. John. For we must interpret the older 
books of Holy Scripture by the newer. That which 
in the older is more obscure, in the newer is more 
clear; and though the expression "the word of the 
Lord," might at first seem to be but a figure of speech, 
its true interpretation is disclosed with certainty when 
St. John tells that the Everlasting Word is the only- 
begotten Son of God. 

In treating of the Divine element in Holy Scripture, 
we must distinguish between Revelatiofi and Inspira- 
tion.* Holy Scripture is said to be revealed, and also 
to be inspired ; but the latter term is perhaps less 
properly applied to the written words than to the 
writers of the Word. They were inspired, and to 
them the Word was revealed. Now Revelation is the 



Lee on Inspiration. 



The Grace of the Son. 133 

agency of the Son in giving Holy Scripture, and In- 
spiration the agency of the Spirit. Inspiration is sub- 
jective; Revelation is objective. Correct apprehen- 
sion rests upon two things, an external presentation of 
truth, and an internal fitness to receive that truth. 
Revelation secured the first condition ; Inspiration the 
second. The prophet's mind was made capable of 
receiving the ray of light without refracting or dis- 
coloring it, by the Inspiration of the Spirit ; that ray 
was sent into the mind from without by the Revelation 
of the Son. a 

It follows, therefore, that wherever there is Revela- 
tion in Holy Scripture there is the manifestation of 
the Son; that is, of Christ our Lord; He is "the 
Truth," which is beheld. 

It is not asserted, however, that everything con- 
tained in Holy Scripture is i?nmediately revealed by the 
Son. Revelation may be either immediate or mediate. 
The supernatural truth of Holy Scripture was revealed 
immediately to the prophets and Apostles, mediately 
through them to us. So truth might be given mediately 
to the prophets themselves ; it might be set before their 
minds by other agencies which stood between them 
and God, as well as be given directly by God. Truth 
which could not be known, except by supernatural 
means, was necessarily revealed, either immediately 
by the Son of God Himself, or mediately by the 

a The distinction of Revelation and Inspiration is clearly shown 
in the Apocalypse, where the objective and subjective operations 
are referred to the Second and Third persons of the Blessed 
Trinity. Cf. Ch. i. 10, 11. 

12* 



134 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

agency of angels performing His commands. We 
have accounts of the first mode in the passages intro- 
duced by the formula already alluded to. Of the 
mediation of angels we have several accounts, as in 
the visions of Daniel and Zechariah. But in this case 
also the Revelations were mediately from the Son j 
the angels received them from Him, and were His 
agents to communicate with the children of men ; He 
is the Principal, visible to the eye of faith, as if He 
were personally present. 

In like manner, the matters related in Holy Scrip- 
ture, which seem not to be supernatural, — the references 
to events of the natural world, or of tradition or his- 
tory, — are to be counted a part of Revelation proper, 
and therefore from the Son of God, though the ordi- 
nary avenues of knowledge were the mediate chan- 
nels by which the writer obtained information of them. 
They have their place as essential parts of the one 
whole ; they were recorded as such under the Divine 
guidance. As Inspiration wrought according to the 
matter to be recorded, in the measure appointed by 
the Spirit, — as Providence works by constant law or 
special interposition, according to the will of God, so 
Revelation wrought, supernaturally, or naturally, ac- 
cording to the measure necessary to give us the mind 
of God. 

Thus, the objects for which Inspiration was given 
did not necessitate that it should be exerted to the full 
extent of correcting the language of the apparent into 
the language of the real, in cases where the sensible 
perceptions of mankind, or their philosophical beliefs 
respecting natural phenomena were at variance with 



The Grace of the Son. 135 

the final conclusions of merely physical science. " God 
works," says Hooker, somewhere, "according to the 
end to be attained," and here the end to be attained 
was spiritual, not scientific Revelation. Had Inspira- 
tion, in fact, wrought to the full extent of rectifying 
every ordinary belief respecting natural phenomena, 
to which Scripture refers, it would practically have 
defeated its own end ; for, while it is as easy for us to 
translate the apparent in Holy Scripture into the real 
(as we now understand it) as it is to apprehend by the 
terms sunrise or sunset, the real motion of the earth, it 
would have been very difficult for the minds of the first 
ages of the world to have divested themselves of their 
philosophy of the apparent, in order to accept a revela- 
tion of the philosophy of the real ; and therefore the 
result would have been to them both unintelligible and 
incredible. Inspiration, therefore, increased the power 
to perceive truth, only so far and on such subjects as 
was necessary in the Divine plan of the record. 

So Revelation wrought, in measure suited to the 
matter to be recorded, — sup ernatur ally, so far as truth 
unattainable by ordinary avenues of information was to 
be revealed ; naturally, by those avenues, when they 
sufficed for the purpose God designed. It was direct 
and immediate, so far as the truth could not otherwise 
be known; but when it could, God permitted the writer 
to obtain it by natural means, — observation, tradition, 
or documentary research; the whole Scripture being 
thus an union of the natural and the supernatural, 
both blended together, both from the same author; 
in the same manner as God's Providence in the world 
at large is the perfect blending of His natural laws, 



136 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

and His immediate oversight of, and care for His 
creatures. But whether the truth were matter of his- 
tory, of observation, of experience, or of supernatural 
communication, it was none the less Divine Revela- 
tion, — none the less the work of the Word, the Son of 
God, — either immediately, or mediately from Him ; 
for " the whole Creation is the Lord's;" "all things 
were made by the Son, and for Him ;" and the records 
of the Inspired Word were selected by God's over- 
ruling care ; they are revelations of Him who reveals 
the Godhead by the Creation, and in every other 
way. 

3. And this introduces another fact contained in 
this inexhaustible name of our Lord ; that the Creation 
itself is a revelation of Him its Creator. The book of 
God's Word, and the book of God's Works (as the 
natural world has been called), though separate are 
not disconnected volumes, any more than the Old and 
New Testaments. They are parts of one mighty whole, 
by which God is completely manifested ; and the Re- 
vealer of the whole is the same Divine Word, who 
became man. The natural under Inspiration, in Holy 
Scripture, is the transition from Nature in the Crea- 
tion to the Supernatural in Revelation ; just as Provi- 
dence in the midst of human affairs is the transition 
from the constant course of nature under law to the 
miracles by which Revelation was authenticated, — all 
being nicely blended parts of the one Divine plan. 

Our Nicene Creed instructs us to confess faith in 
"one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven 
and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." 
This has been already explained to mean, that as God 



The Grace of the Son. 137 

the Father is the source and origin of all being, He is 
the source and origin of the created universe. But 
the same Creed also instructs us to confess, " Our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, . . 
by whom all things were made." The Son is the 
active agent in the Creation. So St. John declares 
in his Gospel, "All things were made by Him, and 
without Him was not anything made, that was made;" a 
and again, "The world was made by Him." b The 
true doctrine therefore is, that God the Father created 
the world by the Son as the active agent, of whom (it 
must be added to make the statement complete) the 
Holy Spirit is'the energizing power. 

Now the world is not God, nor is it the body of 
which He is the soul. It is a system of things and 
powers distinct from God, created by Him, differing, 
therefore, from Him as the created from the uncreated. 
It is under His government. We know God through 
the world, therefore, not by perception of things them- 
selves, but by knowledge of the wisdom with which 
they are formed, and made to harmonize together, and 
ordered to a common end. We know God through 
nature, by means of the law under which nature con- 
sists. The world can tell us nothing of its creation ; 
it can only give us to infer that it was made according 
to a preconceived pattern or idea, and that it continues 
in being, in motion, and in development, according to 
universal and necessary laws. These ideas and laws c 

a John, i. 3. b John, i. 10. 

c An idea is the constitutive law of a thing ; a law is the regu- 
lative idea of the activity of a thing. In reason, therefore, there 



138 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

are not the world, they are above it, they govern it ; 
they are, therefore, so far as they are truly apprehended 
by us, the manifestation to us of God as the Governor 
of the Universe. If, then, we could, by the Creation, 
attain a knowledge of laws and ideas as they exist in 
the mind of God, we should know God perfectly, as 
manifested in the creation ; and so far as we can ap- 
poximate to it, so far we approximate to a knowledge 
of God. The knowledge of ideas and laws, so far as 
we can reach it, is Reason. The world, therefore, as a 
work of God, reveals itself as a work of Wisdom or 
Divine Reason ; it reveals the Wisdom of God more 
clearly than any other attribute. For, being a finite 
world, it tells us only inadequately of infinite Power ; 
without Revelation, only inadequately of infinite Love; 
but in every adaptation of means to ends, in every 
realization of an idea or a law, in every provision for 
growth, increase, reproduction, in every effect pro- 
duced by any cause, it tells us of perfect Wisdom. 
But the special attribute of the Second Person of the 
Holy Trinity is the being the Word, or Wisdom, or 
Reason of the Father, beholding and knowing His 
eternal, universal, constitutive, all-penetrating, perfect 
law, and working all things subordinate to that law. 
The Creation, therefore, is in Holy Scripture and 
the Creed, attributed to the Son; and the manifesta- 
tion of God which is made through the Creation is a 
manifestation of the Son, and of God through Him ; 
since the only true knowledge of God's law of crea- 



is no essential difference between ideas and laws ; both have the 
character of universality and necessity. 



The Grace of the Son. 139 

tion which we can attain is thrown upon the world by 
the Son, as the mirror of the Father's perfection. 

And this is true, whether the Divine law, which it is 
the object of philosophy to reach, is given objectively 
or subjectively, — whether there is really any distinction 
between intuition and induction or not ; whether it is 
elicited from our own being in contact with external 
phenomena, or is inferred from the phenomena of the 
rational mind. For, in considering the- Creation, we 
must remember that we, too, are created beings, and 
therefore, wherever laws and ideas are placed for our be- 
holding, whether in the mind or out of the mind, they 
are placed there by the one Creative Wisdom, they are 
in us (if we apprehend them truly) the image of the 
Divine Wisdom, the vision of God the Father in and 
by the Son. The object of philosophy, whether natu- 
ral or metaphysical, is to attain the knowledge of these 
laws, to comprehend them in their totality, to destroy 
isolation, and to know everything in its relations to the 
system of the whole, — that is, under all its laws, — and so 
to attain the mind of its Governor. It is a well-known 
dogma of philosophers, that "Truth consists in abstrac- 
tions," which is but a less religious way of saying that 
truth is above the world of things, — that "it resides in 
the bosom of God." 

Hence every fresh advance in philosophy, every cer- 
tain truth attained, is a further approximation to the 
knowledge of God through His Son, capable of" bear- 
ing its part in the enlargement of our Christian faitlx, 
if we can trace its connection with the central truth of 
our Redemption. And that is the true system of the 
Creation which beholds in all its parts the continuity 



140 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

of all God's laws and doings, and their complete agree- 
ment with the Revealed Word and the Gospel of His 
Son. But if it be separated from that centre, if it be 
set up in opposition to it, then, however accurate may 
be the knowledge of the isolated truth, it is, as regards 
its relations to the complete system, a falsehood the 
more pernicious according to its magnitude. 

Of all this body of truth, however, the work of 
Christ, the Word Incarnate, is the centre and the most 
necessary part. The initial need of man is a Re- 
deemer. Without His atonement and mediation, what- 
ever other knowledge we might have, whether of God 
above, or of earth below, would not avail for our hap- 
piness, if, indeed, without Him, we could have any 
knowledge. To be held under condemnation and 
given the knowledge that we are so, would be simply 
to know our own misery, and the impossibility of es- 
cape ; while to know other things, and yet be igno- 
rant of this, would be not to know the truth of any- 
thing. To penetrate the mysteries of science and of 
art, and to take our pleasure in them, lying under such 
a doom without knowing it during life, would but make 
the unveiling of the future world by death the more 
awful and crushing in the intensity of terror and de- 
spair ; while, on the other hand, the illusory pleasures 
of this transitory world would be turned all to gall, by 
the accuracy of a knowledge which, without a media- 
tor, possessed a revelation of the coming eternity, and 
every accession of insight into our true condition, 
would be but a foretaste of the final punishment. The 
unbeliever, to enjoy even the fleeting moment, must 



The Grace of the Son. 141 

seek a "refuge of lies," a — ignorance, not knowledge, 
delusion, not truth. 

Christian faith, then, is formally the apprehension 
and reception of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Truth, 
in this wide latitude of meaning, so far as we have 
the capacity to take it in — as the object of religious 
contemplation, the foundation of religious trust, where- 
ever we turn, whether to God above or to earth below, 
whether we search for truth in the word of Revelation 
or in the knowledge of our own nature, and the expe- 
rience of our own condition and duty, — as the circum- 
ference of the sphere of religious thought, which alone 
is thought that reaches truth. He reveals to us the 
Father, He sends us the Holy Spirit, He makes us to 
know ourselves, He is the origin and end of the Crea- 
tion, of human history, of all things; and therefore 
that only can be a truly religious life which beholds 
Him everywhere, and in all, and the world in Him. 

But if all that is were known, except the mediation 
revealed in the Gospel, it could never avail to give us 
hope of salvation; whereas, clinging to Christ the 
Mediator, it is possible for the Christian to have all 
the comfort, and assurance, and joy of true religion, 
however otherwise illiterate and ignorant. This knowl- 
edge, then, is not only the most necessary, but the 
only necessary part. To know God the Father recon- 
ciled in Christ, to know ourselves according to our 
calling as redeemed Christians, to know what to do as 
such, and to have the happy consciousness of duty done 
by the rule of Christ, — this is sufficient for the Christian 

a Isaiah. 
13 



142 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

as a Christian, and the rest is added on as he expands 
in knowledge and in power. 

Finally, as we have seen that Repentance, to be com- 
plete, must include faith and regeneration, so Faith 
must include repentance and regeneration and the walk 
of the regenerate, to be perfect and saving faith. To 
preach Christ the Truth, then, is but to proclaim Him 
as the Way and the Life, — for He is Truth realized in 
the person for whom He is saving Truth. Such a per- 
son has repented of the sin and the falsehood of his 
natural life ; he has sought the grace of Regeneration ; 
he " lives by the faith of the Son of God." Hence 
faith, like Repentance, has its two stages, the one pre- 
ceding the other following Regeneration. 4 In the first 
stage, the penitent sinner beholds Christ (as it were ) 
afar off, as the Mediator, indeed, and the Redeemer, 
but cannot yet say, " Christ is my Redeemer;" for the 
personal appropriation of the Redemption rests upon 
the communication of the Divine life of Christ to the 
individual at his regeneration. The second stage is 
when the believer is regenerate and lives as becometh 
the regenerate ; then he is made one with Christ, his 
redemption is assured, he is " alive from the dead," he 
has within himself the assurance of forgiveness, and all 
the other benefits of Christ's passion. Then his faith 
is perfect, and so long as he retains, by a holy walk, 
the life implanted at his regeneration, so long he has 
the confidence of salvation, he knows in his own soul 
that he is "justified by faith," and through the merits 

a These are the fides informis and fides formata of the old 
theologians. 



The Grace of the Son. 143 

of his Redeemer can stand in the presence of God the 
Father. 

III. We are sent, therefore, to the consideration of 
the mystery of "Christ our Life," a to complete the 
circle of Scripture teaching respecting the grace of the 
Son. By the life-giving operation of His grace, He is 
the centre of our being, as in His presentation of Him- 
self to faith He is its circumference and spiritual hori- 
zon. He thus enters into a still closer relation with 
the regenerate, into a vitalizing union, by which He 
becomes the active principle of their life, the inward 
revivifying influence of their spiritual natures. He 
enters (if we may so say) into the substance of the 
soul, He communicates to it life from Himself, He 
resides in the soul of the regenerate, which, by this 
union with Him, is "dead to sin," and "alive to 
God." b Our regeneration, then, is our entrance into 
this so close union, by which "He dwelleth in us, and 
we in Him," by which "we are members of His body, 
of His flesh, and of His bones. " c 

I do not know that it is formally stated, but it seems 
to be tacitly, perhaps unconsciously, assumed, by our 
modern theological writers, that our Lord Jesus Christ 
is in us by the presence of His Spirit in our hearts, and 
in no other sense. It is true, and (as will be hereafter 
seen) a truth of most momentous importance, that the 
Holy Spirit is indwelling in the regenerate, and that 
He is (in the language of the Nicene Creed) the 
" Giver of Life ;" but it is no less true that our blessed 

a Col. iii. 3. b Rom. vi. ir. c Eph. v. 30. 



144 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Saviour Himself is also present, that He is the Life 
which the Spirit gives, that the Son Incarnate, in His 
own person, in some mysterious way, dwells in and is 
the life of the Christian. Our "life" is the indwelling 
grace of the Son; the indwelling grace of the Holy 
Spirit is the means by which this life springs up, and is 
brought to maturity in our sanctification, — it is (as it 
were) the light, the heat, the air, the rain, by which 
the seed of life fructifies in righteousness of Christian 
thought and deed. "Know ye not your own selves," 
says St. Paul, "how that Jesus Christ is in you, except 
ye be reprobates?" 3 On this fact, indeed, more than 
on any other depends the whole doctrine of threefold 
grace, which makes faith in the Holy Trinity of so 
great practical necessity. 

Further, God the Son is the life of the Christian, 
not simply as Divine, but as Divine and human. For, 
as Hooker remarks, "That which quickeneth us is the 
Spirit of Christ, and His flesh that wherewith He 
quickeneth." And again he asks: "Doth any man 
doubt but that, even from the flesh of Christ,- our very 
bodies do receive that life which shall make them 
glorious at the latter day, and for which they are 
already accounted parts of His blessed body?" For 
Christ, being God and man in one person, His grace 
being His personal efficacy in us to eternal life, and 
His assumption of humanity being the means to our 

a II. Cor. xiii. v. udoni/ioi, "spurious," said of coin which has 
the color and appearance, but not the substance of gold and silver ; 
hence of Christians who have the semblance, but not the substance 
of the Christian, — who have lost " the life," and therefore are 
reprobate. 



The Grace of the Son. 145 

Redemption, there is the same conjoint operation of 
the Divine and human natures in this respect, which we 
have seen in the parts of His grace already treated of. 
There is a mystical conjunction, therefore, of all true 
Christians with the humanity, as well as with the 
Divinity of their head. Not only is there that sub- 
stantial conjunction with him, through the presence of 
His Spirit, which rests upon the unity of essence in 
the Deity, but there is also a personal conjunction with 
Himself, in His own person, in which He partakes of 
the Divine and the human nature, — a conjunction 
wrought by the operation of the Holy Spirit when we 
are made regenerate ; and it is in respect of this that 
He is said to be the Life of His people. 

Upon so important a subject as this, it is impossible 
that a theologian whose authority is as deservedly great 
as that of Hooker should misunderstand or misstate 
the doctrine of the Church of God. As an example, 
therefore, of the testimony of her doctors and fathers, 
I shall set down his statements at some length, request- 
ing attention to the forcible, unmistakable, and un- 
hesitating precision of his language. 

" We are by nature the sons of Adam. When God 
created Adam He created us, and as many as are de- 
scended from Adam, have in themselves the root out 
of which they spring. . . The sons of God have 
God's own natural Son, as a second Adam from 
Heaven, whose race and progeny they are by spiritual 
and heavenly birth. . . Life, as all other gifts and 
benefits, groweth originally from the Father, and 
cometh not to us, but by the Son, nor by the Son to 
any of us in particular, but through the Spirit. For 
13* 



1 46 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

this cause, the Apostle wisheth to the Church of 
Corinth ' the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.' 
Which three St. Peter comprehendeth in one, ' the 
participation of Divine Nature.' . . But in God, 
we actually are, no longer than only from the time of 
our actual adoption into the body of His true Church, 
into the fellowship of His children. . . Our being 
in Christ by eternal foreknowledge saveth us not, with- 
out our actual and real adoption into the fellowship of 
His saints in this present world. For in Him we 
actually are, by our actual incorporation into that 
Society which hath Him for. their Head, and doth 
make together with Him one body (He and they in 
that respect having one name), for which cause, by 
virtue of this mystical conjunction, we are of Him, and 
in Him, even as though our very flesh and bones should 
be made continuate with His. . . We are, therefore, 
adopted sons of God to eternal life by participation of 
the only-begotten Son of God, whose life is the well- 
spring and cause of ours. 

. . . " The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam. 
Yea, by grace we are every of us in Christ and in His 
Church, as by nature we are in those our first parents. 
God made Eve of the rib of Adam. And His Church 
He frameth out of the very flesh, the very wounded 
and bleeding side of the Son of Man. His body cruci- 
fied, and His blood shed for the life of the world, are 
the true elements of that heavenly being which maketh 
us such as Himself is of whom we come. For which 
cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of 
Christ concerning his Church, 'flesh of my flesh, and 



The Grace of the Son. 147 

bone of my bones,' a true native extract of mine own 
body. So that in him, even according to His man- 
hood, we, according to our heavenly being, are as 

branches in that root out of which they grow 

Adam is in us as an original cause of our nature, and 
of that corruption of nature which causeth death, Christ 
as the cause original of restoration to life ; the person 
of Adam is not in us, but his nature, and the cor- 
ruption of his nature derived into all men by propaga- 
tion; Christ, having Adam's nature as we have, but 
incorrupt, deriveth, not nature but incorruption, and 
that immediately from His own person into all that 
belong unto Him. As therefore we are really par- 
takers of the body of sin and death received from 
Adam, so, except we be truly partakers of Christ, and 
as really possessed of His Spirit, all we speak of eternal 
life is but a dream 

" Thus much no Christian man will deny, that when 
Christ sanctified His own flesh, giving as God, and 
taking as man, the Holy Ghost, He did not this for 
Himself only, but for our sakes, that the grace of sanc- 
tification and life, which was first received in Him, 
might pass from Him to His whole race, as maledic- 
tion came from Adam unto all mankind. " a 

Confirmed by these statements of our great divine, 
we proceed to inquire into the teachings of Holy 
Scripture respecting the communication of spiritual 
life from our Lord to His faithful followers. 

The word life, besides having its twofold physical 
use to denote the bodily vitality and the outward state 

a Hooker, Ec. Pol., b. v. ch. lvi. 



148 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

or condition of man, is used in four different but re- 
lated senses in Holy Scripture, to express, 1, the eter- 
nal life of our Lord as a Divine Person, residing in 
His separate Personality, received by Him from the 
Father, dwelling in Him as God before His Incarna- 
tion, after His Incarnation as God and Man; 2, the 
grace of which that Personal life is the fount, com- 
municated as an inward, active, vivifying power to 
the soul of man, as the spiritual life both of soul 
and body; 3, the outward working of that inner life, 
its growth and development into the outer walk of 
the Christian ; and 4, the continuance of that life in 
consummate blessedness in the eternal happiness of 
Heaven. Examples of these senses (except the third, 
which is singular) are most distinctly apparent in the 
writings of St. John ; in those of St. Paul two or three 
senses are frequently combined. 

1. The first meaning appears in the opening of the 
first chapter of St. John's Gospel, "In Him was life, 
and that life was the light of men." a The Son, as a 
person distinct from the Father, has life in Himself; this 
life He has from the Father, and it is the light of men, 
their joy and hope of salvation ; because on the posses- 
sion of a Personal life in Himself depends His power 
to mediate between the Father and man ; by it He is a 
third party, able to merit from the Father what He gives 
to man, able to give to rebellious man of His own, that 
He may make him acceptable to His Father. So the 
Saviour Himself declares: "As the Father hath life in 
Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in 
Himself, " b where the sense unquestionably is that the 

a John, i. 4. b John, v. 26. 



The Grace of the Son. 149 

Father hath given to the Son the subsistence of a dis- 
tinct personality, by giving Him His own divine life. 
And this truth our Saviour further uses as an analogy by 
which to show the spiritual subsistence of the Christian 
through participation of Him: "As the living Father 
hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that 
eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." a The Divine 
life of the Son, indeed, is the foundation of St. John's 
teaching ; he begins his Epistle with it, as well as his 
Gospel : "That which was from the beginning, which 
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have looked upon, and our hands have han- 
dled of the word of Life : for the Life was manifested, 
and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto 
you that eternal life which was with the Father, and 
was manifested unto us." b Here "the Life," and the 
"Word of Life," are names of our Lord derived from 
His possession of life in Himself, and His giving us to 
partake of it. And as this is the beginning, so it is 
the end of St. John's doctrine ; for he closes his Epistle 
with the words, "We are in Him that is true, even in 
His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal 
life." c 

2. The second sense, in which it denotes the com- 
munication of the grace of Christ as a power of spiritual 
life in us, is as clearly and distinctly to be perceived in 
St. John. The testimony of John the Baptist, set down 
by the Evangelist in his third chapter, is: "He that 
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life : and he that 
believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath 

a John, vi. 57. b I. John, i. I, 2. c I. John, v. 20. 



150 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

of God abideth on him." a The words "everlasting 
life" may combine the fourth sense with the second, 
but the present tense of the verb shows conclusively 
that the life itself is a present possession, — now begun, 
and everlastingly continuing, — an inner, spiritual resur- 
rection of the soul from its death in sin. So our 
Saviour Himself says : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that 
sent me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into 
condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." b 
And again, "I am come that they might have life." c 
These passages prove that the word "life" has the 
sense of an inner spiritual power in man ; but they do 
not prove, with the clearness necessary to demonstra- 
tion, that this power is derived personally from the Son 
Incarnate. This, however, is evident, beyond gain- 
saying, by the following: "The bread of God is He 
which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto 
the world. " d " I am the bread of life." 6 " The bread 
which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the 
life of the world. " f He would not represent Himself 
under the figure of bread — "bread of life" — unless 
He intended us to understand that He would be given 
and received in order to be life to the world. Hence, 
further on in the chapter whence the foregoing quota- 
tions are made, He declares, "Except ye eat the flesh 
of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no 
life in you."* And when the manner of this reception 



a John,iii. 36. c John, x. 10. e John, vi. 36. 

b John, v. 24. d John, vi. ^3- f John, vi. 51. 

« John.vi. 53. 



The Grace of the Son. 151 

was in doubt by His disciples He explained that it 
would be a spiritual reception, a reception of the life, — 
the " incorruption " (to use Hooker's word) of His 
body and blood: "The flesh profiteth nothing; the 
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they 
are life.' ' a Hence, also, St. John says in his first 
Epistle, " He that hath the Son hath life, and He that 
hath not the Son of God hath not life." b The union 
of the Christian and his Lord, by which he derives 
his spiritual life, is represented also by the growth of 
the branches in the vine : "I am the vine, ye are the 
branches. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 
except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye except ye 
abide in me." c 

3. It is somewhat remarkable that the word seems 
not to be used by St. John in its third sense, in which 
it seems to be most commonly (I might almost say, ex- 
clusively) used in our modern theological literature. 
For the verb "to live," in this sense, the Evangelist 
substitutes ' ' to walk, " as in the following from his first 
Epistle : " He that saith he abideth in him, ought him- 
self also so to walk, even as He walked;" from his 
second, "This is love, that we walk after His com- 
mandments;" from his third, "I have no greater joy 
than to hear that my children walk in the truth." A 
clear example of this sense, however, is St. Paul's 
declaration, "The life which I now live in the flesh, I 
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me 
and gave Himself for me." d 

a John, vi. 63. c John, xv. 54. 

b I. John, v. 12. d Gal. ii. 20. 



152 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

4. Of the fourth sense, containing the notion of 
eternal blessedness, examples are so numerous that it is 
not necessary to set any down ; all those passages where 
eternal or everlasting life is spoken of have this sense, 
and how many they are, may be seen by turning to the 
concordance/ 

From this analysis of the meanings of the word, we 
perceive the history of the grace of Christ the Life to 
be as follows: 1. He is, in Himself, the Divine Life, 
having received it from the Father. This life He first 
communicated to His human nature by His Incarna- 
tion, and completed its effect upon it by His Resurrec- 
tion from the dead. 2. To mankind in His Church 
He communicates the grace of life from Himself (by 
the agency of His Spirit) as an inward principle of 
Regeneration, — a seed (as it were) of eternal life. 3. 
That seed of eternal life, the indwelling grace of Christ, 
springs up in the Christian and develops, by the 
assimilation to itself of the whole man, his thoughts, 
feelings, affections, actions; it becomes active by the 
co-operation of the will and affections under the Di- 
vine influence of the Holy Spirit, which are to it as 
soil, and air, and light, and heat, and moisture to a 
plant, and so grows outwardly into the life and walk of 
holiness, justice, charity, and purity ; and finally, 4, 
having brought forth fruit unto holiness in perfection, 
it is transplanted into the Heavenly Kingdom of the 

a Between the second and fourth senses comes in the whole 
world of Christian faith and practice. We first receive it, we live 
according to it by faith and grace influencing our wills ; and so we 
make our calling and election sure. This explains such texts as 
John, iii. 15, vi. 40, 47, etc. 



The Grace of the Son. 153 

redeemed, there to flourish and abide in eternal 
blessedness. 

This account agrees with all the passages in the New 
Testament which speak of our spiritual life. And 
since that entire accordance with Scripture is the proof 
of the doctrine, the rest of this chapter will be occu- 
pied with its verification — 1, in those places (more 
abundant, especially, in the writings of St. Paul) in 
which the word "life," or the verb "to live," em- 
braces a combination of two or more of the senses above 
assigned to it, and 2, in those places where the doctrine 
is assumed as the ground of other forms of speech. 

1. Passages in which the word combines two or 
more senses are these which follow : 

Rom. v. 17. "If by one man's offence death 
reigned by one ; much more they which receive abun- 
dance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall 
reign in life by one Jesus Christ." Without entering 
into questions regarding the rendering of the very dim- 
cult context of this verse, it is evident that the Apostle 
argues a fortiori from Adam to Christ, in favor of uni- 
versal Redemption, and the salvation of the Redeemed 
through partaking of the grace and life of Christ. This 
is well brought out in the rendering of the verse in 
Conybeare & Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul 
(vol. ii. p. 168) : "If the reign of death was established 
by the one man [Adam], through the sin of him alone ; 
far more shall the reign of life be established in those 
who receive the overflowing fulness of the free gift of 
righteousness, by the one man Jesus Christ. ' ' But this 
translation omits the point of the antithesis of the two 
parts of the sentence, — the change of giving a personal 
M 



154 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

nominative to the verb " reign," in the second clause. 
The exact sense is that by the original sin of the first 
man, death reigned over us and enslaved us ; but by 
the gift of Christ we are restored, not only to liberty, 
but to dominion in life. It is not merely that righteous- 
ness reigns in us to life, but that we reign, being 
alive, now and forever, spiritual life being eternal 
life — the verb in the future (" shall reign") having 
a present force (as is evident by the nature of St. 
Paul's argument), and carrying on this present dispen- 
sation of. grace to the future dispensation of glory. 
The idea of " reigning in life," therefore, combines the 
second and fourth senses of the latter word; to which 
the third sense is added in the next verse: •''There- 
fore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all 
men to condemnation ; even so, by the righteousness* 
of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification 15 
of life " — the meaning being, I conceive, that the grace 
obtained for us by the righteousness of Christ, avails 
for all who receive it, to a threefold justification of 
life: i. Justification, by infusion of the life of Christ 
(our being alive being the justifying fact); 2. Justifica- 
tion by the righteousness of a life or walk according to 
grace; 3. Justification availing to eternal life. The 
same idea is expressed in v. 21 : " Where sin abounded, 
grace did much more abound : that as sin hath reigned 
unto death, even so might grace reign through right- 
eousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." 

a diKaiojfjia. b 6lk<; 

c diKaiioair, the act in progress, as distinguished from < 
the act completed. 



The Grace of the Son. 155 

Rom. vi. 2, 3, 4. "How shall we, that are dead to 
sin, live any longer therein ? Know ye not, that so 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were 
baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried 
with Him by baptism into death : that like as Christ 
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
even so we also should walk in newness of life. ' ' The 
word is used here in the third sense, the Apostle ex- 
horting Christians, as baptized into the death and 
resurrection of Christ, to act and walk according to 
the commandments of God, in a new outward life. If 
we are dead to sin, we cannot live or walk any longer 
therein ; hence our outward life is a new one, the fruit 
of a new inner life. In v. 8, "If Ave be dead with 
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him," 
this passes over into the fourth sense — life completed at 
the Resurrection. And that the union with Christ in 
baptism is the ground, both of the exhortation in v. 4, 
and of the hope in v. 8, is manifest from the use of the 
word in the second sense, in v. n: "Christ being 
raised from the dead dieth no more ; death hath no 
more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He 
died unto sin once ; but in that he liveth, He liveth 
unto God. Thus, a also, reckon ye yourselves to be 
dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." 

Rom. viii. 2. " The law of the Spirit of life b in Christ 
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 

a oiiTO) Kac "thus also," not "likewise' 1 '' as in the authorized 
version. 

b ttjq farjg " of the life " in Christ Jesus. 



156 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

death." The sense evidently is, "the law of the 
Spirit who giveth the life in Christ Jesus;" for the 
"Spirit of life," or "of the life," is the "Spirit who 
maketh alive, " a and the life is "the life in Christ 
Jesus." The word is therefore to be taken in its 
widest application, as including the second, third, and 
fourth significations; according to which view, "the 
law of the Spirit of life" will be, 1. the law of the 
Spirit, written upon the heart, when the Christian re- 
ceives the inner life ; 2. the law of the Spirit govern- 
ing the outward life according to God's will ; and 3. 
the law of the Spirit, by obedience to which, having 
received the initial life on earth, we shall attain its con- 
summation in heaven. In the same way, the "Spirit 
who maketh alive," is the Spirit, 1. by whose agency 
we receive " the life in Christ Jesus," 2. by whose help 
we live the life in Christ Jesus, and 3. by whose power 
we are raised to the life everlasting. 

Rom. viii. 10. "If Christ be in you, the body is 
dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of 
righteousness." The inner life is presupposed, and 
the fountain of it declared to be the Second Person of 
the Holy Trinity, in the postulate: "If Christ be in 
you." The expression, "the Spirit is life," therefore 
can only mean that the Holy Spirit is the agent devel- 
oping and perfecting the outward life of righteousness 
by His action on the heart, thus opposing and over- 
coming the deathful influences of the carnal nature, and 
assuring us power to continue in the grace we have re- 
ceived to eternal life. This text, therefore, is a clear 

a to nvev/xa to faonotoi' — Nicene Creed. 



The Grace of the Son. 157 

testimony to the fact that the grace of life is personally 
derived from the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing 
could be stronger than the expression " If Christ be in 
you." 

In the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the same chap- 
ter the word is used three times, twice to denote the 
outward walk in this world, and the third time the 
final consummation in the future world: "We are 
debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if 
ye live after the flesh ye shall die ; but if ye through the 
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." 

II. Cor. iii. 6. " Our sufficiency is of God ; who also 
hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ; 
not of the letter, but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth, 
but the Spirit giveth life." The life here declared to 
be given by the Spirit is the life of Christ, which is 
communicated by His operation, whose agents and 
ministers (the Apostle asserts) are the commissioned 
ministers of the Gospel. St. Paul contrasts this minis- 
try with that of the law, which, having no such regen- 
erating grace and spiritual power to give as would 
enable men to perform its commands, was but a 
"letter" not a "spirit," and so, as it is called in the 
next verse, a "ministration of death." 

The next place in which the word occurs is in the 
tenth and eleventh verses of the fourth chapter of this 
Epistle, where the Apostle refers to the hardships en- 
dured in the exercise of his ministry, and draws atten- 
tion to the source of the strength which sustains him 
under them: "Always bearing about in the body 
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of 
Jesus might be manifest in our body. For we which 
14* 



158 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

live [this natural life of hardship, want, and suffering] 
are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that 
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our 
mortal flesh." That is, that the life communicated by 
the grace of Christ might be made manifest in the 
fruits of fortitude, patience, and endurance which the 
Apostles were enabled to exhibit — that the inner life 
might be manifest in the outer life. 

II. Cor. v. 4. " That mortality'might be swallowed 
up of life" — the eternal life succeeding the Resurrec- 
tion. 

Gal. ii. 20. "I am crucified with Christ: neverthe- 
less I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the 
life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of 
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for 
me." In this passage, note the accuracy of the Apos- 
tle's language, as interpreted by the doctrine here ex- 
pounded. "Not I, but Christ liveth in me," — this in 
the second sense above assigned to the word. The 
grace of Christ is the inner life-power. The Apostle 
has an inner spiritual life because " Christ liveth in 
him." The word then passes over to the next sense, 
the outer life of act and deed : " the life which I now 
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." 
Note the words " by faith of the Son of God." A new 
element is here introduced. The grace of Christ is 
the inner life ; but in order for that life to develop 
outwardly, it must be assimilated by the sanctified will 
and other spiritual powers. But the will needs to be 
stimulated to action by the "faith of the Son of God," 
and therefore the Apostle so expresses himself in rela- 
tion to the outer life. 



The Grace of the Son. 159 

Gal. iii. 11. "The just shall live by faith." This 
quotation from the prophet Habakkuk cannot be un- 
derstood, except by remembering that "faith " here is 
inclusive — equivalent to the acceptance of the whole 
Gospel dispensation, with its spiritual grace, as well as 
its preaching of the Atonement. "The just shall 
live/' — be made alive, and so continue to all eter- 
nity, — by the grace of the Divine life, the condition of 
receiving which is " faith." 

Gal. v. 25. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk 
in the Spirit." The gift of the Holy Spirit is simulta- 
neous with the gift of life from the Son ; we cannot 
have the latter without the former; therefore " to live 
in the Spirit " is "to live in Christ " and vice versa. 

Eph. iv. 17, 18. " This I say therefore, and testify 
in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gen- 
tiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, . . . being 
alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance 
that is in them, because of the blindness of their 
heart." The "being alienated from the life of God " 
is equivalent to the being " without God in the world," 
in ch. ii. v. 12, — being without the life of Christ in 
their souls, having no power in themselves to do what 
is right, and therefore living an outward life contrary 
to the law of God. 

Phil. ii. 15, 16. "That ye maybe blameless and 
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst 
of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine 
as lights a in the world ; holding forth the word of 
life," — preaching the truth of the inner life by your 



160 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

outward conduct, and setting forth by the beauty of 
your holiness, the blessedness of your hope of eternal 
life. 

Col. iii. 3, 4. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid 
with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, 
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in 
glory." Note here, again, how it is said that " Christ 
is our life," — how all that is said of our spiritual life in 
other passages is to be understood of His presence 
in us. 

I. Thess. v. 9, 10. "God hath not appointed us to 
wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we 
should live together with Him." The word is here 
used in the last sense assigned to it above. The Apos- 
tle has previously instructed the Thessalonians, that at 
the last day, those Christians who remain in the body 
will be partakers of the Lord's glory together with 
those who rise from the dead. He exhorts them, 
therefore, to be steadfast in their profession, since it 
will make no difference whether they "wake or sleep " 
— the same eternal life will be theirs in heaven. 

II. Tim. i. 1. "Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by 
the will of God, according to the promise of life which 
is in Christ Jesus." A more correct translation is: 
"Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, 
according to the promise of the life a in Christ Jesus." 
Our translators, by inserting the words "which is," 
have confused the sense, making it possible to read it 
as if the clause "which is in Christ Jous. referred to 

71 ^t.u/r 77/f ev \j>. I//. 



The Grace of the Son. 161 

"the promise." The Greek shows that it refers to 
"the life." St. Paul is an Apostle carrying out the 
fulfilment of the promise made long ago by the pro- 
phets of "the life in Christ Jesus." This promise is 
now fulfilled by the grace of, not now promised by, the 
Gospel. 

II. Tim. i. 10. " Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath 
abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality 
to light by the Gospel." He has abolished spiritual 
death, in the Redeemed, has brought forth life and im- 
mortality from their hidden place in the secret coun- 
sels of God, made them manifest by the preaching of 
the word, and given them in possession, to His people 
by the grace of the Gospel. The word " life " is here 
used to denote the inner grace of the regeneration, the 
beginning on earth of the immortality of blessedness 
assured to believers in heaven. 

Titus, ii. ii, 12. "The grace of God that bringeth 
salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, 
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live 
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." 
The word in this passage needs no comment. The 
third sense is apparent. 

These are the most (if not all) of the passages in the 
Epistles of St. Paul in which the word " life " is used 
in a spiritual sense. Taken together, they agree com- 
pletely with and prove fully the doctrine advanced in 
these pages. Indeed, the interchange and mingling of 
senses in the pregnant language of the Apostle, is one 
of the strongest proofs of the doctrine which could be 
advanced ; for it is impossible to understand him, 
without attending to this fulness of meaning. 



1 62 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

2. But if we confine the evidence of the doctrine to 
the passages in which the word "life " itself occurs, we 
lose much of its support from Scripture. Strong as its 
authority would be, even with this limitation, it is 
doubly confirmed, when we note the equivalent ex- 
pressions, the modes of speech, the course of argument, 
of which the root-idea is the vital union of the regen- 
erate with Christ, through His personal indwelling 
grace. The following are examples of this kind of evi- 
dence : 

John, i. 12, 13. "As many as received Him, to 
them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even 
to them that believe on His name : which were born, 
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
of man, but of God." In this passage a new birth is 
spoken of, and that by the power of the Son, given to 
as many as received Him. The idea is evidently the 
same as that contained in the class of texts before dis- 
cussed, since a new birth implies a new life. It is re- 
produced no less clearly in v. 16 of this chapter: " Of 
His fulness have we all {i.e. all Christians] received, and 
grace for grace." 

John, xiv. 19, 20. " Yet a little while, and the world 
seeth me no more ; but ye see me : because I live, ye 
shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in 
my Father, and ye in me, and I in you " V. 23. " If 
a man love me, he will keep my words ; and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make 
our abode with him." 

John, xv. 1, 2. "I am the true vine, and my Father 
is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bearetfa 
not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that 



77/6' Grace of the Son. 163 

beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth 
more fruit. " V. 5 . ' l Iam the vine, ye are the branches : 
he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth 
forth much fruit." V. 7. "If ye abide in me, and 
my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and 
it shall be done unto you. ' ' The expression ' ' my words 
abide in you" is not the exact equivalent of the "I 
in him," above. "Christ in us" is the source and 
beginning of life, "His word in us," governing our 
conduct, is the means whereby that life comes to ma- 
turity. The retaining His word is within the compass 
of our wills, aided by the grace of the Holy Spirit ; 
hence He says, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide 
in you," as intimating the responsibilities and contin- 
gencies of our action. There is no "if" — no subjec- 
tion to the receiver in His own presence. That, He 
gives or withdraws. 

John, xvii. 19-23. This is from the sacrificial prayer 
with which our Saviour consecrated Himself to be the 
Atonement for our sins. He is praying for His Church : 
" For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might 
be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for 
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on 
me through their word ; that they all may be one ; as 
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
may be one in us ; that the world may believe that thou 
hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I 
have given them ; that they may be one, even as we 
are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may 
be made perfect in one." V. 26. " I have declared 
unto them thy name, and will declare it : that the love 
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I 



164 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

in them." The life-giving union of Christ and His 
redeemed is surely the ground of these solemn utter- 
ances. 

Acts, xxii. is an account of St. Paul's defence before 
his countrymen at Jerusalem. In relating the story of 
his conversion, after telling them of the miraculous light 
which he beheld, he says : "I fell unto the ground, and 
heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why perse- 
cutest thou me ? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord ? 
And He said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom 
thou persecutest." Can any words express more forci- 
bly the union of the saint and his Saviour, than this 
identification of the two? Christ is persecuted in His 
saints — and why, but because He is in them ? 

Rom. vii. 4. "Ye are become dead to the law by 
the body of Christ ; that ye should be married to 
another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that 
we should bring forth fruit unto God." The Church 
is represented in Holy Scripture as the bride, the 
spouse of Christ; the spiritual union is as close as the 
union of husband and wife, who "are no more twain, 
but one flesh." 

Rom. viii. 16, 17. "The Spirit itself beareth wit- 
ness with our spirit, that we are the children of God ; 
and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint 
heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him, 
that we may be also glorified together." The " part- 
nership " with Christ, being fellow-heirs, fellow-suffer- 
ers, and partakers of His glory, and the consequent 
suggestion of the union with Him in His Church, by 
the partaking of His life, is mure plain in the original 
than in the translation. 



The Grace of the Son. 165 

Rom. viii. 28-30. "We know that all things work 
together for good to them that love God, to them who 
are the called according to His purpose. For whom 
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be con- 
formed to the image a of His Son, that He might be the 
first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He 
did predestinate, them He also called : and whom He 
called, them He also justified : and whom He justified, 
them He also glorified." Without entering into the 
predestinarian controversy, which does not affect the 
particular subject now under consideration, we may 
perceive that the text evidently states the process of 
God's grace in leading us to ultimate salvation. It is 
His will that we should be ' ' completely made over in 
the image of His Son," b first by being made partakers 
of His life ; then by being trained to righteousness after 
His example ; and lastly, by being raised to the glory 
of the life eternal — "called" at baptism, "justified," 
by grace enabling us to walk in righteousness and holi- 
ness; "glorified" at the Resurrection. 

I. Cor. i. 30. " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who 
of God is made unto us, wisdom, and righteousness, and 
sanctification, and redemption." "Of Him," that is, 

a cvfj,fj.op<povg TTjg eiKovoc, 

b This,. perhaps, expresses the force of cv/2{j.op<povg, though the 
text is an exact and literal translation. In the ancient philosophy, 
things being considered to consist of matter and form, the matter 
was held to be an inert, and the fon7i an active, vivifying prin- 
ciple. To be cv/iuopqog, therefore, is to be subject to the active 
form or formative influence, and by it to be brought into con- 
formity with the archetype. How well this expresses the opera- 
tion of the grace of the Son. 

15 



1 66 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

"born of God," as St. John expresses it — "in Christ 
Jesus," being made "members of His body, of His 
flesh, and of His bones." Being thus closely united to 
Him, He is made unto us "wisdom," enabling us by 
His grace to receive the truth, "and righteousness," 
giving us the ability to walk justly in this present world, 
"and sanctification," imparting inward holiness of 
heart, "and redemption," as gaining the final victory 
over death, by raising our bodies to immortality. 

II. Cor. v. 17. "If any man be in Christ, he is a 
new creature : old things are passed away ; behold, all 
things are become new." To be a "new creature" 
is equivalent to being "new born," "regenerate," 
" made alive unto God/' — a man is this by being " in 
Christ." And as far as in his life the life of Christ 
within him is realized, so far the old is passed away," 
and " all things are become new." To the same effect 
also, in Gal. vi. 15, the Apostle says: "In Christ Jesus 
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum- 
cision, but a new creature." And in Ephesians, ii. 10 : 
"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jefus 
unto good works." 

Gal. iii. 24-27. "The law was our schoolmaster to 
bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 
But after that faith is come [that is, the dispensation 
in which faith is made perfect by grace given from 
Christ ; — for it is evident that " faith" is here used as 
a comprehensive name for the whole Gospel covenant] 
we are no longer under a schoolmaster/ For ye are 

a naida.} w, or , that i>, the servant who attended children of rank 
to their teacher. The English woi die same word 



The Grace of the Son. 167 

all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For 
as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ." "Being baptized into Christ," and 
"having put on Christ," are clearly equivalent to being 
made partakers of the life of Christ, as well by partici- 
pation of His grace as by profession of His calling. 

Ephesians, ii. 4, 5. "God, who is rich in mercy, 
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when 
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with 
Christ." The union, — nay more than this, the oneness 
of Christ and His saints, the Head and the Body, is so 
vividly impressed upon the Apostle's mind "that he 
speaks as if the Church were raised from the dead at 
the very resurrection of her Lord, — as if it were partaker 
of His lot, not only in the manner of His life, but at 
the time. The Apostle's vehemence carries him into 
this use of the figure hyperbole, and gives intensity to 
his meaning. The same is the case in all other places 
where we are said to have or to do anything " together 
with Christ." 

Col. ii. 20. "If ye be dead with Christ from the 
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the 
world, are ye subject to ordinances?" The Christian 
grace and profession is a partnership with Christ in 
His death, by which He is severed from "the world 
that now is." It may be well to remark, that, gener- 
ally, when the Apostle speaks of death, he does not con- 
sider it in the heathen way, as a state of the body, a 
state of dissolution or non-existence \ but as a state of 



shortened. The translation " schoolmaster " gives a wrong sense 
to the entire passage. 



1 68 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the man, and therefore as a state of existence ; so that 
to pass from life to death or from death to life, is not to 
pass out of existence, and vice versa ; but to pass from 
one state of existence to another. a To be dead with 
Christ to the world, therefore, is to be alive with Christ 
to spiritual and eternal verities, — to have received the 
grace of spiritual life from Him. The Apostle tells Chris- 
tians that if they be thus regenerate, they must live ac- 
cordingly; their actions must correspond to their state. 

Col. iii. 9, 10. "Ye have put off the old man with 
his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is re- 
newed in knowledge after the image of Him that cre- 
ated him." This is parallel with, "As many of you as 
have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." 

Heb. iii. 14. "We are made partakers of Christ, if 
we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto 
the end." That is, we are made partakers of Christ, 
now, by receiving His grace of life, and shall continue 
so to be, if we hold this beginning of our confidence, 
by leading a holy life, steadfast unto the end. 

In Heb. x. 1, the Apostle begins a discussion of the 
efficacy of the life-giving sacrifice of Christ with these 
words: "The law having a shadow of good things to 
come, and not the very image of the things, could 
never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by 
year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect." 
This passage is produced to note the antithesis of the 
legal "shadow" and the "image" which, it is implied, 
the Gospel is. The law, according to the teaching of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, was an inefficacious type t or 

a Cf. Rom. vi. 2; vii. 4; \iv. 9; I. Cur. XV. 12; Eph. v. 14; 
Col. i. iS; and many other passages. 



The Grace of the Son. 169 

bare representation of the mysteries of the heavenly 
world, prophesying of a future dispensation (the Chris- 
tian), which should be the "image," or embodied 
form, the heavenly mysteries themselves being the true 
substance. Three things, then, are here implied, the 
"shadow," the "image," and the substance. The 
"shadow"* differs from the "image" as a picture 
from a statue. Figures painted have no substance ; 
they are represented only by their surface colors, 
with no body underneath; the statue or "image" 
bodies it forth, filling out the form with substance, 
yet not substance of the same nature with that which 
is represented. So, the Christian dispensation is the 
" image" of the heavenly world, differing from it, as 
grace differs from glory. The Christian "image," 
therefore, differs from the Mosaic " shadow," in having 
the grace of Christ, — the life of Christ realized in us on 
earth, as the image of the life of Christ realized in 
heaven. It is in such expressions as this that the all- 
pervading evidence of this doctrine is noticed. 

I. Peter, i. 22, 23. "Seeing ye have purified your 
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto 
unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one 
another with a pure heart fervently : being born again, 
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. ' ' Four 
statements are implied in this passage : 1 . that Chris- 
tians are born again ; 2. that this new birth is "by the 
Word of God," — that is, by the grace of Christ, the 
Son of God, the "Word, which liveth and abideth 



a GKia. 
15* 



1 70 Threefold Grace qf tht I/oly Trinity. 

forever;" 3. that obedience to the truth advances the 
purification of the soul, being the means by which the 
" incorruptible seed assimilates the soul to itself; and 
4. that this progress from the beginning of the new 
birth to the perfection of the Christian character, is 
"through the Spirit," that is, by His abiding grace, 
acting in co-operation with the grace of the Son. 

These passages corroborate the evidence contained 
in the former group. They contain the same doctrine 
in different words. We read as clearly in them, that 
Christ our Lord is the source of our spiritual life ; that 
we possess that life by His indwelling ; that our out- 
ward life and conduct as Christians is the outgrowth or 
development of the inward life received from the Re- 
deemer, and that the eternal life of Heaven. is its fur- 
ther development, its consummation, and its reward. 

We see also in the Scripture which has been brought 
forward, the confirmation of the assertion advanced 
at the beginning of this section : that we derive our 
life from the Son of God, not only as Divine, but 
as Incarnate. Take, for instance, the sixth chapter 
of St. John : " The bread which I will give is my flesh, 
which I will give for the life of the world," and the 
whole discourse of which this is an example. It asserts 
clearly the connection between our spiritual life and 
the partaking of Christ Incarnate. Nay, every text of 
the whole catena proves it, speaking, as they do, of our 
Lord as Jesus Christ. The Word did not take His 
name Jesus, nor his official designation, Christ, until 
He took flesh ; and this constant use of His human 
name informs us by implication that He first filled His 
own humanity with the Divine Life, and thence de- 



The Grace of the Son. 171 

rives His grace to His followers by mystical union with 
Himself; so that Christ, the Son of God, made man, 
is the fountain of our life, as He is the truth of our faith 
and the way of our repentance. 

It will now, also, be seen more clearly why Repent- 
ance and Faith, in their first stage, are so necessary for 
those who seek the life of Christ, having come to the 
knowledge of their need of it, after having committed 
actual sin ; and why, at the same time, this life itself is 
the bringing of repentance and faith to perfection. In 
the case of those who are regenerate before they have 
committed actual sin — infants who attain the election — 
a preparatory repentance and faith are not necessary, 
as they are not possible ; the repentance and faith of 
their after-years are that forsaking of sin, and knowledge 
of a present Redeemer, which follow after their re- 
generation, and which must be acted while life lasts, 
that they may not lose the gift. But from adult per- 
sons, a preparatory repentance and renunciation of 
their past sins, and a faith in Christ the Redeemer, are 
required, that they may have in themselves no ' ' root 
of bitterness," — no bar to the operation of grace; be- 
cause the life is a restoration from the death of sin, 
which must be left behind when they rise new-born in 
spirit ; and because it is a making over to them the 
merits of the Redeemer, which they must plead by 
faith in Him. In such persons, therefore, repentance 
and faith in the first stages begin the work, which is 
carried forward by the communication of life in their 
regeneration ; and then repentance and faith, contain- 
ing within themselves all added Christian graces, com- 
plete the work, by the life of holiness which ensures its 



172 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

continuance and increase, till it grows " to the measure 
of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 

It remains to be said that, since the true beginning of 
the Christian life is the communication of the grace of 
Christ as an inward gift at our regeneration, its growth 
consists in its development from within outwardly ', in 
heavenly affections and works of righteousness. This 
has, indeed, been spoken of; but it needs to be insisted 
upon, in order to call attention to Scripture testimony 
bearing upon this point, the strength of which might be 
lost were it mingled with that which has been brought 
forward in another connection. It will be seen also, 
that by the mercy of God this grace may continue for 
a time at least in those who do not show in themselves 
the full fruits of its presence ; though it will finally be 
taken away, to their eternal loss, unless they eventually 
"give diligence to make their calling and election 
sure." 

In the third chapter of the first Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, St. Paul writes : "I, brethren, could not speak 
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as 
unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and 
not with meat : for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, 
neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal : 
for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and 
divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" From 
this we collect that the Corinthian Christians had the 
gift within them, though it had not yet brought forth 
fruit according to its full measure, it had not yet cast 
out "envyings, strifes, divisions;" hence they were but 
"babes in Christ;" their infancy consisted in the dis- 
crepancy of the outward life, with the profession of 



The Grace of the Son. 173 

Christ ; and therefore the full stature of manhood 
would consist in the subjection of the outer life to the 
obedience of "faith working by love." So to the 
Galatians, who were in danger of being led away by 
legalizing Jews to the bondage of the law of Moses, he 
writes in the same spirit, but with expression of more 
intense emotion: "My little children, of whom I 
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I 
desire to be present now, and to change my voice ; for 
I stand in doubt of you." a He counts them "little 
children," because they are, indeed, new-born ; but he 
fears that " Christ is not formed within them," or their 
life would correspond more closely to the Gospel, and 
not be led away to follow the dead ceremonies of the 
law, which are now abrogated. 

To the same effect, in the chapter of I. Corinthians 
above quoted, by a change of the figure, the Apos- 
tle says: "Other foundation can no man lay than 
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man 
build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious 
stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall 
be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because 
it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every 
man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work 
abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a 
reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall 
suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by 
fire." b 

Of the various meanings of this passage, it is surely 
one, that the building upon the foundation, " Christ in 

a Gal. iv. 19, 20. b I. Cor. iii. n-15. 



174 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

them," with "gold, silver, precious stones," i.e. im- 
perishable good works, is equivalent to the growing to 
the full measure of holiness in the other figure ; while 
the building with "wood, hay, stubble" is like re- 
maining a babe, — yet, in this case, if the foundation 
still remain, if Christ be in the man, "he shall be 
saved, yet so as by fire." 

In still another way the same thing is expressed in 
II. Cor. iii. 18: "We all, with open face beholding 
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into 
the same image from glory to glory [that is, from one 
height of holiness to another], as by the Spirit of the 
Lord." 

In the Epistle to the Ephesians the Apostle explains 
the labor of the members of the Church in their several 
offices to be, " for the perfecting of the saints, for the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying the body of 
Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ : 
that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and 
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by 
the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby 
they lie in wait to deceive : but speaking the truth in 
love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the 
head, even Christ : from whom the whole body fitly 
joined together and compacted by that which every 
joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in 
the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, 
to the edifying itself in love." And so he goes on to 
the exhortation: "That ye put off concerning the 
former conve'rsation the old man, which is corrupt ac- 



The Grace of the Son. 175 

cording to the deceitful lusts ; and be renewed in the 
spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, 
which after God is created in righteousness and true 
holiness." And then he ends with certain practical 
exhortations ; from which we gather that in his mind 
the progress of the Christian life is from within out- 
wardly, and that the means of progress is the earnest 
endeavor to make the outward life correspond with the 
law of God ; by which means the whole heart and 
character is assimilated to the Divine seed implanted at 
the beginning. 

The same idea is expressed in the exhortation to the 
Colossians : "As ye have received Christ Jesus the 
Lord, so walk ye in Him : rooted and built up in Him, 
and established in the faith. " a "Rooted" of the 
inner life, " built up " of the outer. 

So again, and lastly, in the fifth chapter of the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews : ' ' Every one that useth milk is 
unskilful in the word of righteousness : for he is a babe. 
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, 
even those who by reason of use have their senses ex- 
ercised to discern both good and evil," b — that is, who 
by practice have made the outer life correspond with 
the inward gift. These are grown to manhood in 
Christ. 

Now the grace of Christ, by which He is the life of 
His people, corresponds to His kingly office. As He 
is "the Way," by His priesthood, and "the Truth," 
in his prophetical character, so He is "the Life," in 
His kingly relation to His people. For the type of 

a Col. ii. 6, 7. b Heb. v. 13, 14^ 



176 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the kingly office which represents His reign is not 
that with which we are acquainted in modern times; 
but it is the patriarchal type, and therefore includes, 
besides rule and judgment, the idea of family relation- 
ship, of a common nature, and of nourishment and 
preservation as well as of subjection. The patriarchal 
king was the " first-born among many brethren." He 
was "the head of the body;" it was he who fed and 
sustained and preserved his people, as the defender of 
the common weal, and the administrator of the com- 
mon store. So our Lord Christ is the King of those 
whom He has made His brethren, by giving them to 
partake of His nature in their regeneration ; He is the 
head of the corporate body, His Church ; He feeds His 
people with the Divine food of His body and His blood ; 
and these acts are as essential to His kingly office, as 
the watchfulness of His providence, and the scrutiny of 
His judgment. 

But the offices of Christ are inseparable ; and there- 
fore His kingly grace confirms and makes operative 
His grace as Prophet and as Priest. His priestly ac- 
tions are, for the most part, those of one not immedi- 
ately present in the soul; a part of them were per- 
formed while He was on earth in the flesh ; another 
part are performed by Him now present in heaven. 
His prophetical grace is, for the most part, external ; 
by it He is to us as the world of sight around us, pre- 
senting Himself, and all things in Himself, as the object 
to the spiritual eye of faith. But by this grace He 
enters into our nature, makes us Hi> own, and applies 
to us personally the merits «>f I lis priestly acts, and the 
hopes, comforts, consolations, and joys of His propheti- 



The Grace of the Son. 177 

cal teachings. For it is this imparted grace which 
separates those who are the saved from those who are 
not. While Christ made a " full, perfect, and sufficient 
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the 
whole world," yet, without the communication of a 
gift of grace, which draws with it the application of 
the atonement to them individually, men are not re- 
deemed from their sins, nor released from the con- 
sequences of them. Nor, though men "believe and 
tremble," as do the fallen angels with a dead faith, are 
they thereby justified ; but they require a grace im- 
parted, which shall make it a living faith, quickened 
with hope, joy, love, and good works. That gift of 
grace is the Divine life of Christ our Head. Its pos- 
session alone gives the sacrificial and mediatorial acts 
their efficacy for the recipient, causes them to termi- 
nate in individuals for their salvation, gives faith its 
power for justification, its energy for good works. And 
thus, by fitting this part into its place, the doctrine of the 
grace of Christ becomes an ensphered and perfect whole. 

The effects of the grace of the Son, so far as they be- 
long to Christian experience — so far as they enter into 
the consciousness of the Regenerate — are connected 
so intimately with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that 
they will best be considered in that connection in the 
next chapter. We have still to consider here, however, 
the relation of the grace of the Son to the grace of the 
Father, and the effect of the former upon our position 
before God. 

The priesthood of Christ has been hitherto consid- 
ered as sacrificial and intercessory. It has been shown 
16 



178 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. . 

that He offered up Himself as a Sacrifice and Atone- 
ment, and that now, by virtue of that atonement, He 
intercedes within the veil of the heavens on our behalf. 
The virtue of His intercession extends to all mankind 
so far as this, that God grants to them, in respect of it, 
the opportunity of pardon and reconciliation, depend- 
ent upon their action in accepting the grace of Christ. 
Where, without the Atonement, all must have been lost, 
now, because of it, all may be saved, if they will avail 
themselves of the offer of mercy, and come unto God 
in the way which He has appointed. The intercession 
of Christ in this aspect is represented in Holy Scrip- 
ture by that parable of our Lord's in which He repre- 
sents Himself as the gardener pleading for the barren 
fig-tree, " spare it this year also," thus averting the im- 
mediate sentence. Though the first and most obvious 
application of this parable may be to the case of the 
unprofitable members of the Church, it is certainly sus- 
ceptible of the widest interpretation, as applying to the 
whole world in its natural estate, and thus it represents 
the universality of Christ's mediatorial action in delay- 
ing the execution of the sentence, and giving opportu- 
nity for its reversal. 

But the priesthood of our Redeemer assumes a new 
and higher aspect for those who accept the Gospel, and 
are regenerate and renewed by His grace and the grace 
of the Holy Spirit. It is not only sacrificial and inter- 
cessory, but Eucharistical and perfective of the new re- 
lation between man and the reconciled Father. He 
not only obtains us from the Father and makes us His 
own, but He offers us again to the Father, as an ac- 
ceptable gift, having taken away our sins ; and thus as 



The Grace of the Son. 179 

our great High Priest, in our regeneration and renewal, 
He acts towards the Father — not terminating our rela- 
tion to the Godhead in Himself. Hence in that holy, 
sacrificial prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter 
of St. John, He dwells more upon this exercise of His 
office than upon any other ; since it is this which com- 
pletes the other acts, and makes them operative and 
effectual. " For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they 
also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither 
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall be- 
lieve on me through their word ; that they all may be 
one ; as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they 
also may be one in us : that the world may believe that 
thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest 
me, I have given them ; that they may be one, even as 
we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they 
may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may 
know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, 
as thou hast loved me. Father, I will," He proceeds, 
"that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with 
me, where I am; that they may behold my glory, 
which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before 
the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the 
world hath not known thee : but I have known thee, 
and these have known that thou hast sent me. And 
I have declared unto them thy name, and will de- 
clare it ; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me 
may be in them, and I in them." 

Now the first effect of the fully imparted grace of 
Christ, in this function of His priestly office, as opera- 
ting upon our relation to the Father, is to secure "the 
remission or forgive mess of our sins," — those which we 



180 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

commit before our regeneration, at our regeneration, 
and those which we commit after, — provided they be 
not such, nor so many as to provoke the entire with- 
drawal of the grace of the Son, on our sincere repent- 
ance and amendment. " The God of our Fathers raised 
up Jesus. . . . Him hath God exalted with His 
right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give 
repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins;" a so 
preached St. Peter. And so St. Paul: "Be it known 
unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is 
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." b And so 
St. John: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, 
cleanseth us from all sin." c 

The second effect is our justification, or our being 
accounted just before God, for the sake of His merits. 
" Being justified freely by His d grace, through the Re- 
demption that is in Christ Jesus. " e We are "justified 
by faith. " f There is, perhaps, no declaration of Holy 
Scripture which has been the subject of so much con- 
troversy as this. But at this stage, we are able to ob- 
tain the true meaning with a few words. To be "jus- 
tified " is a forensic term, and is, undeniably, "to be 
declared just." In its forensic use, it has two applica- 
tions: first, to the sentence of the judge, acquitting the 
defendant — either accounting him innocent of the 
charge, or admitting the atonement or restitution as 
sufficient ; and secondly, to the declaration of the de- 
fendant, setting forth his innocence, or pleading satis- 

a Acts, v. 30, 31. d i.e. the Father's. 

b Acts, xiii. 38. c Rom. iii. 24. See Titus, iii. 4-7. 

c I. John, i. 7. f Rom. iii. 28. 



The Grace of the Son. 181 

faction. With respect to the former meaning, faith is 
the title to justification. In the judgment which passes 
upon every human soul, God accepts the true faith of 
those who are truly united to Christ, as members of 
His mystical body (since no one can be thus in vital 
union with that body who has not true faith), as equiva- 
lent to complete righteousness, and so declares them 
just, appropriating to them the merits of the Redeemer 
to cancel their guilt, and counting His obedience as 
theirs. In the second sense, man, trusting not in his 
own works, which, though he be regenerate, are still 
imperfect, is empowered to declare himself justified, as 
before the bar of God, with a certainty equal to his 
faith in the Redeemer, his knowledge that he has ful- 
filled the conditions attached to the gift of the grace of 
Christ, and his assurance that that grace is his possession. 
The ground of justification, then, is union with 
Christ. a The gift of His Divine life carries with it all 
the benefits of His sacrificial acts, and causes them to 
terminate in the recipient for his salvation. This union 
is so intimate — it is so completely a oneness of the 

a It is a proof of the essential unity underlying all apparent 
theological differences, that Bishop Mcllvaine quotes with entire 
approval, in his " Righteousness by Faith," S. Bernard's expres- 
sion of this doctrine of justification as follows : " Since the Apostle 
[says ?] if one died for all, then were all dead ; meaning that the 
satisfaction made by one should be imputed to all, even as one 
bare the sins of all; so that there shozdd not be found one distinct 
person who incurred the forfeit, and another who made satisfac- 
tion ; because truly the head and the body are one Christ. The 
head satisfied for its members : Christ for His own bowels." — 
Righteousness by Faith, p. 1 08, note. 
16* 



1 82 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

members of the mystical body with their head, that it 
pleases God to count as ours the merits of the sacrifice 
of Christ, as He placed upon Him our sins. It is (to 
speak as forcibly as we can, if we may do so reverently) 
as if, being made one with Him, the atonement belongs 
to us and the sin belongs to Christ, so unreserved is the 
communion, so entire is the transfer of properties be- 
tween Him and the members of His mystical body, the 
Church. The Apostle' Paul speaks of our union with 
our Lord, as being " dead with Him," being " buried 
with Him," being "risen with Him," being "set with 
Him in heavenly places" — as being " members of His 
body, of His flesh and of His bones," so that what 
is His is ours and what is ours is His — His righteous- 
ness takes away our sins and God accepts us as fully 
justified in Him. a 

The third effect of the grace of the Son is to secure 
our adoption as the Sons of God. Though we had for- 
feited by sin our title to be counted the children of 
God, by creation, God adopts us again through Christ, 
receives us into His family, " the general assembly and 
Church of the first-born," makes us "fellow-heirs" 
with His only-begotten Son, and so pours upon us the 
fulness of His love, that we may stand before Him with 
joy to all eternity. 

Thus the mediatorial work is accomplished ; — the 



a This simple Church statement cuts away all disputations re- 
specting the application of the Atonement, the imputation of Christ's 
righteousness, the nature of vicarious sacrifice, etc., and substi- 
tutes in place of the scholastic refinements which have darkened 
the subjects, the firm faith in the reality of the union of the mem- 
bers with the Head. 



The Grace of the Son. 183 

grace of the Son being for remission of sins, for regen- 
eration of nature, for justification of life, for adoption 
into the heavenly household of God the Father. 

In conclusion. It must be remembered, by way of 
warning, that, being of so transcendent benefit, so fully 
efficacious to eternal life, — the grace of the Son, if it be 
once lost, can never be restored. Those who fall away 
totally from the grace of Christ fall away forever. De- 
grees of it may, by the mercy of God, be regained ; 
but if all be gone, there is no new imparting. As it 
required Christ to restore what we lost of the perfection 
in which Adam was created ; so it would require a 
second Christ to restore the loss of the new creation. 
Such a second Redeemer there cannot be ; and there- 
fore there cannot be a second regeneration. This is 
the sense of such passages of Scripture as the following : 
"It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, 
and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made 
partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good 
word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if 
they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repent- 
ance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God 
afresh, and put him to an open shame. " a " For if after 
they have escaped the pollutions of the world through 
the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
they are again entangled therein and overcome, the 
latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For 
it had been better for them not to have known the way 
of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn 
from the holy commandment delivered unto them." b 

a Heb. vi. 4-6. b II. Peter, ii. 20, 21. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

A S the grace of the Son is subordinate to the grace 
of the Father, and is directed to restore man to a 
state of acceptance with the Father, so the grace of the 
Holy Spirit is auxiliary to the grace of the Son. and 
operates to the end of making man able to receive and 
retain that grace, and the benefits it confers. The 
communication of the grace of the Son (to all except 
those whom God regenerates in infancy, and takes out 
of the world before they reach the age of conscious- 
ness) depends, as we have made clear, upon the will- 
ingness and co-operation of the recipient, both for its 
initial reception and subsequent growth and increase. 
Since the natural state of man, however, "is such that 
he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural 
strength and good works to faith and calling upon 
God," — such that he cannot at first dispose himself to 
desire and seek the gift, nor afterwards do without fur- 
ther help, those good works will ensure its continuance, 
nor shun those evil deeds which would cause its with- 
drawal, he has need of other grace, given independent 
of, and before the operation of his will and his affec- 
tions, to restore these faculties to their freedom of 
choice, and enable him to seek the saving grace of 
Christ, and to co-operate with it when acquired. That 
( 184) 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 185 

other grace is the help of the Holy Spirit. It has 
pleased God, in arranging the economy of salvation, to 
assign the Holy Spirit the part of the work of man's 
restoration proper to His attributes. It is our duty 
now to inquire what that part of the work is. 

In entering upon this inquiry, it will help us towards 
understanding how there is need of the grace of the 
Spirit, to remember that our Lord Himself, in His 
human nature, was actuated by the influence of the Third 
Person of the Blessed Trinity, though He is Himself, as 
to His Divine nature, the Second. There is an analogy 
in this respect between the Christian's participation of 
Christ, and Christ's participation of Divinity; and if 
the inherent Divinity of our Saviour did not exclude 
His human inspiration by the Holy Ghost, neither 
does the Christian's possession of Christ exclude the 
necessity of the grace of the Spirit. The two Persons 
of the Blessed Trinity have their different spheres of 
operation, one of which is supplementary to the other. 

When the time came at which our blessed Lord was 
to be born into the world, the Angel Gabriel, we are 
told, was sent to the Virgin Mary, with the announce- 
ment, "Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and 
bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus j" and 
when Mary, in her astonishment, inquired: "How 
shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" the angel an- 
swered : " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and 
the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; there- 
fore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of 
thee shall be called the Son of God." a It appears 

a Luke, i. 31-35. 



1 86 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

from this, that though our Lord was in His Divine na- 
ture pre-existent to His birth in the flesh, and possessed 
in His own person all Divine power, yet the operation 
and agency by which He took flesh of the Virgin, was 
that of the Holy Spirit. And we learn, also, that though 
the Father was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ac- 
cording to His human nature, as well as according to 
His Divine, yet He performed the miraculous opera- 
tion which enabled the Virgin to conceive, by the 
agency of the Holy Spirit. We may infer from this, 
that God the Holy Ghost is the immediate agent in the 
operations of Deity in the Creation. For surely if in 
any case the Father and the Son would operate directly 
in their own persons, that case would be the Incarna- 
tion ; yet it was the Holy Ghost who effected the con- 
junction between the human and the Divine, by which 
the Son, who is " Perfect God," became " perfect man, 
of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting." 

Further, the Holy Ghost, in separating from the 
Virgin that substance which was to become the man 
Christ Jesus, cleansed it from all impurity and defile- 
ment of original sin, so that our Saviour, who "did no 
sin, neither was guile found in His mouth," was born 
without sin, "a lamb without blemish and without 
spot." The Holy Ghost thus appears as the agent of 
all sanctification in man ; since He sanctified the hu- 
manity in which the Son was pleased to dwell, that it 
might be His acceptable tabernacle. 

The Spirit who was thus present and operative at the 
Incarnation of our Lord was, moreover, present with 
Him during all His earthly life. We learn this from 
our Lord's own exposition of the prophecy of Isaiah : 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 187 

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath 
anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; He 
hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach de- 
liverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to 
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bound, to 
preach the acceptable year of the Lord." "This day," 
said He, as He read this passage in the synagogue at 
Nazareth, "is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." a 
Hence, when He went into the wilderness to be tempted, 
He was " led by the Spirit ;" b and when He returned, 
He "returned in the power of the Spirit." So St. 
Peter, preaching to the Centurion, told him "how God 
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and 
with power : who went about doing good, and healing 
all who were oppressed with .the devil ; for God was 
with Him." d 

The anointing of our Saviour is specially referred 
to two occasions : the first (which has been already 
spoken of) at His Incarnation, by which he was made 
a man without sin, and so remained, which was (if we 
may so distinguish it) a personal unction ; the other at 
His baptism by John in the Jordan, which was His 
ministerial unction to be prophet, priest, and king of 
God's people. "Jesus, when He was baptized, went 
up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens 
were opened unto him, and He saw the Spirit of God 
descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him." e 
After this He commenced the active exercise of His 
ministry, to which the baptism and unction was His 

a Luke, iv. 18-21. b Luke, iv. 1. c Luke, iv. 14. 

d Acts, x. 38. e Matt. iii. 16. 



1 88 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

solemn consecration ; and in the exercise of that min- 
istry Scripture testimony is clear that He was aided by 
the Holy Ghost. From the words of John the Baptist 
we learn this in respect to his prophetical office: 
" He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God ; 
for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him." a 
And of His exercise of His kingly power by the same 
Spirit our Lord Himself testified in His answer to the 
Pharisees, who blasphemously said : " He doth not cast 
out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." 
"If I," He replied, "by Beelzebub cast out devils, by 
whom do your children cast them out ? therefore they 
shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit 
of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." b 
And the Epistle to the Hebrews says the same of His 
Priestly office : " If the blood of bulls and of goats, and 
the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth 
to the purifying of the flesh : how much more shall 
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit 
offered Himself without spot to God, purge your con- 
science from dead works to serve the living God?" c It 
is evident from these passages of Holy Scripture that 
Christ, though He is God the Son, was, while on earth 
as man, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and 
without Him did nothing. We may not be able to 
solve the mystery why it was so ; but such is the fact. 

The truth seems to be this : The Holy Spirit, being 
the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, proceeding 
from the Father and the Son, is, as it were, the nearest 
to the Creation ; and therefore the carrying forth of all 

a John, iii. 34. b Matt. xii. 24, 27, 2S. c Hcb. ix. 13, 14. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 189 

Divine operations into the created universe is ascribed 
to His immediate agency ; the power of the Father and 
the Son is shed forth upon the world by Him. The 
Father communicates His power to the Son ; the 
Father and the Son communicate it to the Holy Ghost ; 
and the Holy Ghost communicates it to the world to 
produce the effect designed by the Divine will. The 
world itself was created at the beginning by His active 
operation, so receiving and communicating the creative 
energy of the Father and the Son. " By His Spirit," 
says the book of Job, "He hath garnished the heav- 
ens:" 1 and the Psalmist sings: "By the Word of the 
Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them 
by the breath of His mouth," or by His Spirit ; b and 
again, "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are cre- 
ated; and Thou renewest the face of the earth. " c 
And so we read, " The Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters," when the primordial matter was 
about to be ordered into the fair beauty of the world 
which now is. And so in all Divine operations upon 
the world and among created beings, the Holy Spirit 
is the Divine Person who places Himself in immediate 
contact with the world. Hence when the Son was to 
come into the world, and, by taking a human nature, 
become a part of the Creation, He took the substance 
whereof He was made man by the operation of the 
Holy Ghost; and the Third Person of the Trinity 
cleansed and sanctified that substance that it might be 
His habitation ; so that, while it was the Son who be- 
came man, and in whose person (and not in the person 

a Job, xxvi. 13. b Ps. xxxiii. 6. c Ps. civ. 3a 

17 



190 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

of the Holy Ghost) humanity was united to Divinity ; 
yet the Holy Ghost accomplished the union, that act 
being His proper operation. 

After the Incarnation, our Lord Himself was, as 
respects His human nature, a created being, and in 
that nature was therefore subject to the same limitations 
as others, sin only excepted. In the intimate union 
of the Divine and human natures in one person, the 
Divine nature did not yield any of its properties to the 
human, nor did the human subject the Divine to any of 
its limitations. The Person was all which was Divine 
and human ; but both natures of that Person retained 
their respective properties as distinctly as if they were 
separate. As body does not cease to be body on 
being united with spirit in the composition of man, 
so the human soul and body of our Saviour did not 
cease to be such in every attribute by being the soul 
and body of a Divine person. His Divine Wisdom 
was the attribute of His Divine Nature ; but His human 
soul possessed human wisdom, which was capable of in- 
crease as He advanced from childhood to maturity. 
His Divine Power belonged to His Divine Nature ; His 
human nature had but the natural powers and capaci- 
ties of a perfect and sinless man. The Divine Love 
inherent in His infinity had its counterpart in the affec- 
tions of a human nature. His Divine Will was one; 
His human will was another. There was no transfer or 
confusion of properties in consequence of the personal 
union. Hence, when His human nature was the re- 
cipient of a Divine impulse, that impulse was commu- 
nicated according to the conditions of other humanity 
by the Holy Spirit; and, in like manner, whatsoever 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 191 

He operated in the way of miracle, upon beings other 
than Himself, was performed by the same agency. In 
the exercise of His Divine power in healing the sick, in 
liberating the possessed, in feeding the hungry, in con- 
trolling the elements of the natural world, He wrought 
by the Holy Ghost, as he would have done had He not 
been Incarnate ; and in like manner, when He acted 
upon Himself as a created Being, transferring from His 
Divinity to His humanity any supernatural gift, He 
illuminated it with supernatural wisdom, or increased 
its power, or made efficacious in miracle his human acts, 
as He would have given such gifts to any other prophet, 
by the Holy Ghost, — the difference between Him and 
any other prophet in this respect consisting in this, that 
being the Son, " God gave not the Spirit by measure 
unto Him." And so, also, since a perfect man, not 
needing the grace of regeneration and renewal, would 
nevertheless find his perfection in the communion of 
the Holy Spirit, He lived in that communion in moral 
and spiritual perfection while He was on earth, and in 
that communion "by the Eternal Spirit offered Him- 
self without spot to God." 

Such being the facts with respect to our Blessed Lord 
Himself, it will at once be seen that His communica- 
tion of Himself and the efficacy of His grace to His 
followers for their salvation, does not exclude, but 
infers the grace of the Holy Spirit, in preparing 
man to receive it, in applying the gift, and in leading 
the recipient to full sanctification. As it was necessary 
that the substance taken of the Virgin should be sanc- 
tified to become the manhood of Christ, so the man 
who is joined to His mystical body must first be so far 



192 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

sanctified as to be made penitent and believing by the 
grace of the Holy Spirit. As that Spirit operated to 
conjoin the Divinity of our Lord with His humanity, 
so He operates in regeneration to convey the life of 
Christ into the soul of man. As our Lord's perfection 
in manhood consisted in the communion of the Holy 
Ghost, so the Christian reaches full sanctification in 
the same communion. And as our Lord was anointed 
to His ministerial office by the Holy Spirit, so those 
who are Divinely employed to minister in the Church, 
receive from the same source the special gifts by which 
their labors are made efficacious. 

Now as the unction of our Saviour was both offi- 
cial and personal, so the influence of the Holy Spirit 
upon the members of His mystical body is both official 
and personal, — official, so far as particular persons are 
called to minister to the rest ; personal, as it is given 
to each for his own personal, spiritual good. Hence is 
suggested an obvious division of the operations of that 
influence into two classes named, in accordance with 
Scripture authority, "gifts" and ' ' graces, "—gifts being 
those influences which conduce to efficiency in minis- 
tering to the edification of the Church ; graces, those 
which operate to the sanctification of the recipient. 

The "gifts" of the Holy Spirit are not generally 
counted a part of His grace ; since, by the latter, we 
understand that which operates to personal sanctifica- 
tion. For though, ordinarily, the gifts of God were 
given to holy men, they were not causative of holiness, 
nor were they universally joined with holiness. There 
are instances in Holy Scripture where unrighteous per- 
sons have been made instruments of ministration to 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 193 

others, they themselves, by their unrighteousness, being 
cut off from any benefit of their gifts. An example is 
Balaam, who, though he was entrusted with the gift of 
prophecy, nevertheless loved "the wages of unrighteous- 
ness" and taught Balak to tempt Israel to sin. Strictly, 
therefore, the consideration of the "gifts" belongs not 
to the present inquiry ; but it will enlighten us as to 
the "graces" to touch upon them briefly, and to note 
the points in which all the influences of the Spirit bear 
an analogy to each other. 

The most extended catalogue of the "gifts" in Holy 
Scripture is that contained in the twelfth chapter of the 
First Epistle to the Corinthians : "To one is given by 
the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of 
knowledge by the same Spirit ; to another faith by the 
same Spirit ; to another the gifts of healing by the 
same Spirit ; to another the working of miracles ; to 
another prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; to 
another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the inter- 
pretation of tongues : but all these worketh that one 
and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man sever- 
ally as He will." In this list we may distinguish two 
classes of gifts, — those analogous to Inspiration, which 
transcend the ordinary intellectual power of man j and 
those which can all be counted together as the "work- 
ing of miracles," which transcend ordinary physical 
power, or ordinary command over the phenomena of 
nature. 

Inspiration is the means by which Holy Scripture was 
written, and is to be studied in its product. 

The distinction has been drawn between Inspiration 
17* 



194 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

and Revelation ; by which it appears that Revelation is 
the operation of the Son and Inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost. The supernatural facts set before the mental 
vision, relating to the future of this world or to the in- 
visible things of the heavenly world, were so placed as 
objects of spiritual intuition, mediately or immediately, 
by the Son ; they were beholdings or reflections of His 
light, and so Revelations; but the influence on the 
mind itself, which raised its powers to behold, compre- 
hend, remember, and judge correctly of the matter set 
before it, was that operation of the Holy Ghost which 
we name Inspiration. The Divine illumination of the 
inspired men of old consisted (as we have said) in the 
two facts that to them was revealed, by symbol, by 
dream, by angelic ministration, or by the Word of 
God, what was not given to other men ; and that their 
intellectual and moral faculties were inspired to a super- 
natural clearness of vision, correctness of judgment, 
and accuracy of memory, and stimulated to action by 
an irresistible impulse from above. In the variety of 
matter contained in Holy Scripture the following cases 
are to be distinguished : 

i. When the inspired writer was required to record 
such history as enters into the sacred volume. In this 
case it is permitted to understand, that personal obser- 
vation, reliable tradition, documentary evidence, fur- 
nished the objective fact which, in matters supernatural, 
was supplied by Revelation ; Inspiration, therefore, 
would operate to give accuracy to the memory in re- 
taining a knowledge of events ; to aid the judgment 
in selecting proper matter and rejecting extraneous; 
to perfect the moral perceptions, so as to present the 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 195 

truth in the right moral and spiritual aspect and con- 
nections. 

2. When the subject-matter was prophecy, by symbol 
or vision, in the extatic state. The personal appear- 
ance of the Son, as the "Angel Jehovah/' was with- 
drawn after the idolatry of Israel in worshipping the 
calf at Mount Sinai. After that He veiled His commu- 
nications, giving them by the agency of His Spirit, or 
by angelic ministry, or in dreams, visions, and symbols. 
The objective fact is, nevertheless, a revelation of the 
Son, so veiled and farther removed from His people. 
But in visions and symbolic representations, the Holy 
Spirit may have been — doubtless was — the agent opera- 
ting on the mental or bodily organism, so as to produce 
the impression in the mind. This, however, as a func- 
tion of Revelation, must be separated from the Inspir- 
ing act, which consisted in inducing the elevation of 
soul, suspension of bodily sense, and strengthening of 
spiritual insight that gave the prophet power to behold 
the vision and to receive the Revelation, — that condi- 
tion of the spirit which is called in Holy Scripture 
"having the eyes opened." This seems to have been 
the inspiration also when angelic ministers were made 
the means of communicating Divine knowledge, as in 
the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah, and in the 
Revelations. In other cases Inspiration and Revela- 
tion seem to coincide more closely, and prophecy to 
be the object rather of inward intuition than of vision, 
as in the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah. 

3. When the present is made the type of the future. 
It has been remarked of prophecy, that "each predic- 
tion, with scarcely an exception, proceeds from, and 



196 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

attaches itself to, some definite fact in the historical 
present. In other words, when the future is to be fore- 
shadowed, certain events of the time, historical or in- 
cidental, are selected as occasions on which may be 
founded the several disclosures of the Divine will." 
Hence prophecy has a double sense, a nearer and more 
remote ; oftentimes both a literal and a figurative fulfil- 
ment. In this case, the form of the prediction is given 
by the present circumstance, and that furnishes the ob- 
ject before the prophet's mind ; the Inspiration consists 
in the Divine afflatus, which raises the prophet's con- 
ception of the event, and gives his language an appa- 
rent exaggeration, but real meaning far in the future, of 
which the prophet himself may not have been imme- 
diately conscious ; but which the Holy Ghost intended 
from the first. 

4. The inspired writer is himself oftentimes the type 
of Christ, and speaks in his person. In this case, the 
prophecy is rather, Christ, speaking by His Spirit, 
through the mouth of the prophet ; the Divine influence 
moulding him, for the time being, into the likeness of 
Christ, — he being to himself, as he is to us, the imme- 
diate objective element of the Revelation, and being 
supernaturally endowed with the subjective element by 
the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit. An example of this 
is the second Psalm, in which David speaks of himself 
in words which can find their truest fulfilment only in 
our Lord. 

5. When the inspired writer touches the facts of 
human nature in its fallen and redeemed estate, — giving 
utterance to prayers, praises, penitential bewailings, 
spiritual aspirations. The Psalms of this character 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 197 

were doubtless written under that measure of Inspira- 
tion which consisted in bringing the soul into the 
right moral and spiritual state, in which it would obtain 
true views of human needs and of God's goodness, and 
a full expression of its devotional feelings. 

Under these various manifestations of the Spirit's in- 
fluence, there is discernible a unity of the Divine im- 
pulse. Leaving aside that part of the operation which 
belongs to Revelation, Inspiration remains as a quick- 
ening of the soul into supernatural activity, involving 
an elevation of all its faculties, their emancipation, 
while under the influence, from the imperfections of 
nature, and their introduction into a higher world. 
Upon this state of Inspiration Revelation supervened. 

As an operation on and through human nature, In- 
spiration wrought in harmony with its constitution and 
laws. The inspired men of old remained in possession 
of their natural faculties ; but those faculties were 
strengthened and raised to a supernatural degree of 
power and activity ; and thus were guarded by the Di- 
vine influence against the mistakes to which, if left to 
themselves, they would have been liable. Hence their 
natural characteristics are preserved by the writers of 
Holy Scripture ; at the same time the truth is infallibly 
communicated by them, and shown in all its bearings. 
The operation of the Holy Spirit was not merely me- 
chanical; the prophets were not mere instruments to 
write down, word for word, without any personal in- 
terest in the matter ; the Spirit spoke through them, as 
through persons, and therefore exercised His influence 
upon their personal qualities, energizing them, and so 
giving "the word of God in the language of men." 



198 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Inspiration supernaturally stimulated the spiritual na- 
ture, opened senses ordinarily closed, co-ordinated the 
spiritual faculties with each other, withdrew them from 
thraldom to the bodily organization, urged them to 
fulfil their mission, gave accuracy to the memory in 
recording history and vision and prophecy, and so 
ensured us a Scripture "profitable for doctrine, for 
reproof, for exhortation, for instruction in righteous- 
ness." 

The chief part of the effect seems to have been the 
arousing the moral powers — the affections, the con- 
science, the judgment — to perfection of action in respect 
of those matters which were to be treated of. Hence 
the strict impartiality and straightforwardness of the 
history. Hence the stern denunciations of the sins of 
Israel and Judah, of which so large a proportion of the 
prophetical writings consists; from which it is evident 
that the prophet's moral nature was laboring under an 
irresistible impulse, and that he spoke with a personal 
interest which identified him with the message, as a 
co-worker with the Spirit. Hence, also, the penitential 
and meditative psalms, in which human nature is mir- 
rored, are both the Divine declaration of the right 
thoughts and feelings of the heart, and the human ap- 
preciation and expression of those thoughts and feel- 
ings. And so, too, where, as in so many portions of 
the Epistles, the writer enters into argument, it is clear 
that the spiritual reason has been illuminated, and the 
Apostle is so filled with the Divine Spirit that he has 
for his own, the truth he proves and imparts. On the 
other hand, being under the guidance of an intelligence 
higher than his own, the words of the inspired man may 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 199 

oftentimes have had a reach beyond his comprehension 
of them. The prophecy revealed to him by type met 
its fulfilment in the antitype, of which he had but dim, 
uncertain vision ; himself (like David) oftentimes the 
type, he spoke in language designed by the Inspiring 
Spirit to be prophetic of other times and circumstances, 
and another Person, — unconscious, it may be, of the 
fulness of the message he was delivering to future gen- 
erations. Hence "prophecy came not of old time, by 
the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

Nor is this account invalidated, but rather confirmed 
by the instances in which the moral perceptions of the 
prophet did not continually influence his own conduct. 
He was, in this respect, under the same laws of moral 
conduct with other men. Inspiration was a temporary 
gift for a special purpose; it was a "gift," not a 
"grace ;" the exalted perceptions necessary for official 
accuracy in prophesying or recording were results of 
the Divine afflatus, given in a measure beyond that 
vouchsafed for the ordinary guidance of mankind, and 
withdrawn when the occasion ceased. The example of 
Balaam is in point. His prophecies are an epitome of 
all Revelation, and Inspiration is evidently the source of 
their moral coloring ; the noble sentiments, the aspira- 
tion for the death of the righteous indicating that for 
the time the man was possessed of a judgment respect- 
ing the good, which enabled him to give his prophecies 
in their organic connection with the spiritual intent 
of the Word of God. But when the Inspiration was 
withdrawn, he relapsed into his meaner self; when 
actuated by the will of God, he appears holy ; but when 



200 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

left to his own will and put upon his responsibility, he 
shows what manner of man he is, and perishes for his 
unworthiness. 

The gifts of "wisdom," "knowledge," "prophecy," 
"discerning of spirits," imparted to the early Church, 
are doubtless to be regarded as different degrees of 
Inspiration, directed towards supplying the need of 
special Divine guidance which the Christian communi- 
ties felt in their incipient state. "Knowledge" and 
"wisdom" were evidently something more than sanc- 
tified natural endowments ; like the other gifts, they 
were Divine operations on the minds and souls of 
special instruments for special purposes, at a time when 
the Church had not gained the mastery over its situa- 
tion in the midst of hostile Jewish and Gentile tradi- 
tion, learning, and philosophy, and while the canon of 
the New Testament was incomplete. A different mani- 
festation of the same power was the "divers kinds of 
tongues," and the "interpretation of tongues," con- 
cerning which it is not necessary nor convenient to 
theorize. 

The analogue of this gift in the permanent constitu- 
tion of the Church is the Divine aid granted to the 
ministry in the execution of their office as teachers of 
God's word. Holy Scripture stands to the Church in 
place of the direct immediate Revelation granted to the 
prophets of old ; but the right apprehension of it, the 
influence by which the ambassadors of Christ are 
enabled to preach "with power," is the aid of the Holy 
Spirit, — given, not indeed in supernatural measure, but 
in degree suited to the ordinary and continuous work of 
preaching the Gospel to the world at large. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 201 

Of a different nature was the Divine influence in that 
class of gifts which are grouped under the general title 
of " the working of miracles." In this class the 
power of the Holy Ghost, it is more reasonable to be- 
lieve, was exercised not through, but in connection with 
the act of the person who is said to be endowed with it. 
It is difficult to understand that any special efhcacy was 
given to the act or word itself which was the immediate 
visible or audible antecedent of the miraculous effect — 
that the outward sign, whether of words spoken, or hands 
imposed, or whatever else it were, had in itself the 
power it signified. We rather conclude that by the 
Divine will there was a conjunction of the act of the 
Holy Spirit with that of the human agent, and that, 
for His own wise purposes of confirming the Church in 
the faith, the Omnipotent Spirit chose thus to honor 
His special instrument, by operating in time and place 
according to that conjunction. 

Analogous to this gift, in the permanent constitution 
of the Church, is that operation of the Holy Spirit by 
which the Sacraments and ordinances, administered by 
lawful authority, are made means of conveying spiritual 
blessings to the faithful recipient. Not that the effects 
of the operation are visible, or wonderful, as in the 
miracles of the natural world ; but that the operation 
itself is in the same manner performed by the Holy 
Ghost in conjunction with the ministerial act. The 
effect is in the spiritual world, and therefore invisible. 

These two gifts, that of teaching (with the possession 
of Holy Scripture) and that of administering the Sacra- 
ments and ordinances of Christianity, given to some 
persons in the Church for the edification of the whole, 



202 Threefold Graec of the Holy Trinity, 

are the external means of influence of the Holy Spirit 
upon the individual Christian, ordained for the purpose 
of bringing him into union with other Christians, and 
so building up the Church as the visible body of Christ. 
But the grace of the Holy Spirit proper is internal and 
direct upon the heart, and in large part given without 
Sacraments and ordinances. To the consideration of 
this we now address ourselves. 

First. The Holy Spirit is the agent in working the 
Regeneration of those who embrace the Christian 
faith, — that is, of conveying to them the life-giving 
grace of Christ treated of in the last chapter. The or- 
dinary means of conveying this gift (as will be fully 
proved in the next chapter) is by sacramental partici- 
pation. The Holy Sacraments of Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper were ordained, the one for the initial, 
and the other for the continuous communication of the 
grace of the Son. A collateral benefit of their faithful 
reception is an enlarged measure of the Spirit's aid ; but 
their principal intention has relation to the person of 
Christ. Their efficacy, to that end, rests upon the will 
of Christ, pledged in their institution and in the various 
declarations of Holy Scripture concerning them ; and 
that will is carried into effect by the operation of the 
Holy Spirit in time and place with the ministerial act in 
which the outward form of the Sacrament consists. It 
is this operation, which we said was the analogue in the 
permanent constitution of the Church, of the "gift of 
miracles." As the Holy Spirit was the agent in uniting 
the humanity and the Divinity of our Lord, so in Bap- 
tism He works in the faithful recipient that union with 
the Redeemer, by which the life of Christ is made his. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 203 

with the benefits and blessings it confers. In the 
Lord's Supper, also, the Holy Spirit operates to confer 
the spiritual sustenance and increase of the Divine 
life which our Saviour Himself calls "His body and 
blood." Hence, in the Nicene Creed, we profess Him 
to be "the Giver of Life." The Scripture proof rests 
upon our Saviour's own words: "Except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh 
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. " a 
This connects clearly our Regeneration with the opera- 
tion of the Spirit in Baptism. The same inference fol- 
lows, with respect to the communication of the body 
and blood of Christ in the Holy Communion, from the 
close of our Saviour's discourse in the sixth chapter of 
St. John, where, His disciples having missed the 
spiritual sense of His words, He says: "It is the Spirit 
that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing : the words 
that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are 
life," — intimating (whatever may be the precise exe- 
gesis of the words) that that Divine food of the soul is 
communicated by the Holy Spirit, and spiritually re- 
ceived. 

Now in the case of infants who are brought to the 
Sacrament of Regeneration before they have committed 
actual sin, there is no bar to the communication of the 
grace of Christ ; that unconsciousness which prevents 
sinful deeds renders repentance and the active exer- 
cise of faith unnecessary, as it renders them impossible. 
Their regeneration, therefore, is the first operation of 

a John, iii. 5, 6. 



204 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the Holy Spirit, and His subsequent action upon their 
souls is directed to preserve them in life, and build 
them up upon the foundation already laid. 

But in those who have grown up to years of maturity 
unregenerate, and are therefore stained with the guilt 
of actual sin, there must be wrought that sorrow for sin, 
that repugnance to it, that disposition and determina- 
tion to put it away, that appreciation of and endeavor 
after holiness, that desire and will to return unto God 
by Christ, "the way, the truth, and the life," which 
will inspire them to seek and enable them to approach 
the Sacrament in a receptive state of .the soul ; other- 
wise their sin interposes a bar to its efficacy. Man 
cannot produce in himself this repentance and faith 
without aid from on high ; and therefore the prevenient 
grace of the Holy Spirit is given to convict and convert 
him. By submission and obedience to His influence 
man is brought into the right spiritual state to receive 
the gift of regeneration. 

While the grace of the Son, then, is, as we said in 
the last chapter, of voluntary reception (except in the 
case noted above of infant regeneration), and therefore 
sacramental, since Sacraments are the acts by which 
God gives and man takes, — the prevenient grace of the 
Holy Spirit is extra-sacramental and involuntary; be- 
cause it is the initial step in man's restoration, which 
must originate with God. Its object is to enable us 
"to will and to do according to God's good pleasure" 
— to will, as well as to do ; and therefore it is given 
antecedent to any religious exercise of the will of man. 
Man may voluntarily follow or resist the grace of the 
Holy Spirit after it is received ; but it is not voluntary 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 205 

with him whether he shall receive it ; otherwise the 
will so to do would be of his own strength, and he 
could originate in himself the good will which would 
dispose him to its reception. He can receive, volun- 
tarily, the grace of Christ, because the Holy Spirit pre- 
disposes his will; but there is no predisposing grace 
before that of the Spirit, and therefore its reception is 
involuntary. That it is so, Scripture testimony is clear. 
It is true, St. Paul says in one place, "I know that in 
me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing ; for to 
will is present with me, but how to perform that which 
is good I know not;" 3 but here he is speaking of the 
man as under the influence of the Spirit, and his asser- 
tion of the presence of a will to do what the natural 
man lacks power to accomplish, is predicated upon that 
influence. Under it, the state of the natural man is 
thus described in the Epistle to the Galatians: "The 
flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the 
flesh ; and these are contrary the one to the other, so 
that ye cannot do the things that ye would. ' ' b Such texts 
are not contrary to the reasoning by which the Apostle 
enforces the advice: "Work out your own salvation 
with fear and trembling" — "for," he proceeds, "it is 
God which worketh in you both to will and to do of 
His good pleasure." And although this is said to regen- 
erate Christians, it is true a fortiori of all others ; for if 
God's help is necessary that Christians should will the 
good, much more is that help necessary for the unre- 
generate ; if nature in the one is not renewed so as to 
do or to will that which is right of its own power, cer- 

a Rom. vii. 18. b Gal. v. 17. 

18* 



2o6 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

tainly neither the act nor the will is in the power of 
nature unrenewed. When God was about to destroy 
the world by the flood, we read that He said, "My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man," from which it 
is to be inferred that the Spirit had striven with him 
hitherto. So our Lord, making promise to His disci- 
ples of the Comforter/tells them, "When He is come, 
He will reprove [or convict] the world of sin, of right- 
eousness, and of judgment," referring to that exercise 
of Divine grace which operates upon the world (as dis- 
tinguished from the Church, and therefore as unregen- 
erate), to open its heart to the Gospel, or to leave it 
without excuse. And the Apostle to the same effect : 
"By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not 
of yourselves: it is the gift of God;" a and again: 
"Through Christ we both (that is, Jew and Gentile) 
have access by one Spirit to the Father ;" b and more 
particularly in the first Epistle to the Corinthians : . 
"Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto 
these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I 
give you to understand, that no man speaking by 
the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed : and that no 
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy 
Ghost. " c The confession of Christ is a necessary con- 
dition precedent to admission into the Church ; and 
therefore the grace of the Holy Spirit is given before- 
hand to enable men to exercise faith. Indeed, though 
the mass of New Testament teaching respecting the 
grace of the Holy Ghost is directed to inform Chris- 
tians of their blessedness in Him, being regenerate, so 

a Eph. ii. 8. b Eph. ii. 18. <= I. Cor. xii. 2, 3. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 207 

that it is difficult to produce passages bearing imme- 
diately upon the present subject, yet the argument is all 
the stronger; for if Christians who have received the 
grace of the Son need also the grace of the Spirit, 
those who are unregenerate need that grace to produce 
in them the motions towards virtue and religion. 

The Holy Spirit, therefore, is the author of conver- 
sion, producing repentance and faith in those who 
come to their regeneration after having committed ac- 
tual sin. The reader will remember that faith and re- 
pentance were said to be acts, or rather different parts 
of one and the same complex act, — not mere emotions 
or impressions ; and that, as acts, they implied a motive 
in the heart, a perception in the mind, and an effort 
of the will, terminating in the performance of the deed 
or deeds required. The motives to repentance and 
faith are : fear of the consequences of sin, hatred of 
sin itself as repugnant to the law of God, desire after 
good, love of God, gratitude to the Saviour, hope of 
attaining heaven. The mental element is knowledge 
of the Gospel. The effort of the will is to forsake 
sin, to receive the sacrament of regeneration, to per- 
form all good and right actions. The Holy Spirit is a 
Helper in each part of the act ; His influence, there- 
fore, is exerted on the mind, the heart, and the will, 
giving each the power and the conditions necessary to 
enable it to perform its religious functions. 

The will (it was also said) is defective, — partly by a 
loss of its own power, and partly by its connection 
with the other fallen faculties of our nature. Without 
right perceptions in the mind, without right desires, 
affections, and motives in- the heart, it cannot act 



208 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

rightly, even if it possessed the necessary power to 
carry its resolves into effect, because it could not form 
the right resolves. But in addition to this fault of 
association, it is itself weakened by the fall, so that 
the lower parts and passions of our nature, which it 
ought to hold under control, are naturally unruly and 
insubordinate. The influence of the Holy Spirit in 
adding power to the will as weakened in itself, so as 
to enable it more and more fully to act up to the law 
of God, I conceive to be sacramental — the communi- 
cation of the life of Christ/ which, being received 
efficaciously, enables the soul to grow up into the con- 
dition and power it lost at the fall, by a gradual in- 
crease through life perfected at the resurrection. His 
influence on the faculties auxiliary to the will I con- 
ceive to be, on the mind, external; on the heart (in 
which, in accordance with the Scripture use of the 
word, I include the conscience), internal and im- 
mediate. 

The sacramental operation has been spoken of. So 
far as the will depends upon it the repentance and 
faith preceding regeneration is defective, and but pre- 
paratory to a better state. The two operations of 
Divine grace now claiming attention are, therefore, 
the external and the internal. 

One part of the external work of the Spirit in in- 
ducing faith and repentance in the unregenerate is per- 
formed by the revelation of the Law and the Gospel, 

a Hence the religion of those denominations which deny the 
virtue of the Sacraments is observed to be emotional, resting in 
the excitable parts of the nature, not in the will, and therefore 
not steady and constant. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 209 

through the teaching of the ministry, and the giving 
of the Holy Scripture which He inspired. By this 
means He sets before the mind the facts and laws of 
truth and righteousness, reveals the Saviour, and the 
way to come to God by Him. "Faith cometh by 
hearing," says the Apostle; and so does Repentance, 
— for it will be admitted that to be real and valid re- 
pentance it must be actuated according to the Gospel, 
and therefore infers a knowledge of the Gospel. It is 
not to be denied, indeed, that heathen have had per- 
ceptions of the law of nature, and feelings of self-con- 
demnation because they could not keep it; but true 
repentance, in the Gospel sense, implies more than 
this, — it implies a knowledge of sin which Scripture 
alone, or teaching founded on Scripture, can give. 
"The Word," says St. John, "was in the world, and 
the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him 
not." The reason and conscience of man, apart from 
revelation, even though we admit him to be inwardly 
gifted with that measure of the Holy Spirit's grace 
given to the unregenerate, are so imperfect that whole 
communities are habitually addicted, without com- 
punction, to their particular sins; and there is proba- 
bly no sin condemned in Scripture which has not been 
approved and openly practiced by some community or 
other among the heathen. We depend upon God's 
word for the mental element in repentance and faith ; 
and therefore Holy Scripture and the gift of teaching 
granted to the ministry are operations of the Holy 
Spirit for the conversion of the world. 

The other external means of influence is the Holy 
Spirit's use of the circumstances of our life, the provi- 



210 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

dential disposition of our temporal and social con- 
dition, and of the occurrences which happen around us, 
to awaken us to the truth. It is in vain to attempt a 
classification of the means and modes in and by which 
these circumstances are made instrumental in working 
conviction and conversion. "The wind bloweth 
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, 
but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it 
goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit."* 
All God's influence in nature and society is an act of 
Divine grace upon the soul, the end of which is our 
salvation. Besides the modifications of circumstances 
themselves by Divine Providence, the aspects which 
they are made to present are adapted by Divine grace 
to our moral and spiritual state. They influence us 
not only as they are in themselves, but as we are per- 
mitted to behold them. The same event is differently 
viewed by different men ; and as circumstances strike 
upon us at different angles, or range themselves around 
us in different combinations, it is not to be doubted 
that our perceptions of them are arranged by the Di- 
vine Spirit, so as to forward our discipline in our state 
of probation. One man sees a way open in a certain 
situation which another does not observe; they are 
conscious of different possibilities, they discover dif- 

a The precise force of the Greek can scarcely be expressed in 
English, because we have no word combining the two senses of 
the Greek Trvevpa. Our Saviour not only expressed a truth, but 
illustrated it by an analogy, combining the force of these two 
sentences : " The wind bloweth, etc.; so is that which is produced 
of the wind," and "The Spirit breatheth (nvti), etc.; so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit." 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 211 

ferent connections, some missing of one and some of 
another. Hence the varieties of spiritual experience 
are as numerous as the individuals in the world. Some 
men are led to God by observation of the works of 
nature, some by the orderly influences of the society 
in which they are placed, some are awakened by spe- 
cial circumstances, — an accident (as it is called), an 
escape from death, the loss of friends, the influence of 
times of special religious interest, intercourse with re- 
ligious people, solitary hours, — all things are made 
means, by the Holy Spirit, of impressing our souls, 
weaning us from the world, and setting our thoughts 
on our religious calling and duty, thus becoming ex- 
ternal auxiliaries to the Gospel. 

The i?iternal influence of the Holy Spirit He exerts 
directly upon the heart itself, developing the affections, 
the conscience, the sense of sin, the holy desires by 
which man is enabled to accept the Gospel and seek 
the Regeneration. The motives on which we adopt 
any line of conduct, the possibility or feasibility of 
which is perceived, are drawn from the fears, or desires, 
or affections, or principles of the heart. Of the infinite 
multitude of facts set before us by our perceptions, we 
select as important and of practical interest those only 
with which we have an affinity, by reason of some de- 
sire or affection tending that way ; others are passed by 
as irrelevant and without interest, and are not recalled. 
The Gospel is presented under this law of human nature. 
If man were to hear it without any affection or desire 
towards it, without any motive in the heart urging him 
to adopt it, it would have no more effect upon him than 
a fiction, — he would never follow it. The truths that 



212 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

enter the soul through the mind are photographed (so 
to speak) upon the background of the heart, and those 
lines and colors only are fixed with which the heart has 
an affinity. Conscience and feeling, and good and bad 
affections, are in every picture, and, as they are, so is 
the picture. The will stands as spectator, not of the 
reality without, but of the transcript within, and from 
it makes the choice which way the man shall go. A 
holy and pure heart will color the world with the hues 
of heaven, and enable us to see the means and oppor- 
tunities of right action in all things and in all situa- 
tions ; the unholy and impure heart will shadow the 
picture with its own gloom, and lust, and selfishness. 

Now, left to itself, the natural heart has nothing holy 
or heavenly within it, and therefore no affinity with 
the holy and the heavenly in what is set before the 
mind. The spiritual affections are torpid, dormant, 
dead. Hence, were there no internal grace, the heart 
would have no affinity for the Gospel, it would make 
no impression upon it, — it would appeal to the will upon 
no motive; neither its promises nor its threatenings 
would have any weight, and the will would turn away 
from it to follow the things the heart lusted after in 
the world. To Overcome this natural deadness to 
spiritual things, and to implant again, or develop the 
latent germs of the holy and heavenly affections which 
are the acceptable motives to repentance and faith, to 
arouse the conscience, and so give man an aptitude for 
the Gospel, the Holy Spirit exerts His influence di- 
rectly and internally upon the heart. With the effectual 
preaching of the word, and with the providential use 
of circumstances to enforce reflection and conviction, 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 213 

an inward grace and operation upon the soul is wrought, 
calling forth into activity the conscience and the spir- 
itual affections, and thus enabling the man, who other- 
wise would be unable, to repent and believe, and seek 
the gift of the new life. Yielding himself to these in- 
fluences, he receives a new view of his present condi- 
tion and past conduct, his conscience is roused to 
activity and bears witness against him, his higher 
affections seek after good and God and Christ, he 
forsakes and renounces the evil he has heretofore fol- 
lowed, and by this means is made a capable recipient 
of the Sacrament of regeneration. 

The Spirit's influence upon the heart, then, is di- 
rected to arouse in it the love of God, and of good, 
and by this means to create an affinity for the Gospel, 
and induce that " godly sorrow which worketh repent- 
ance to salvation not to be repented of," and that 
" faith which worketh by love. " a For only a repent- 
ance and faith, actuated by the love of God, is valid 
and real, and acceptable with Him. Fear of the pun- 
ishment of sin, I suppose, might be wrought in the soul 
by the preaching of the word without internal grace ; 
but under this motive alone, there would be no real re- 
pentance, no contrition, no forsaking and hating of sin, 
as sin, no faith but that of the devils, who, without any 
grace at all, "believe and tremble." Fear is and 
must be an ingredient in repentance, and doubtless is, 
in many cases, the most powerful and the prime mover 
in the conviction of the sinner ; and the attempts at 
reformation which it causes may, by the mercy of God, 

a II. Cor. vii. 10. 

19 



214 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

have the effect of opening the heart to the influence of 
the Spirit, which infuses the higher principle of love, 
both to define sin, and to show its vileness. But that 
fear, in all actual cases which result in conversion, is 
always a collateral effect of the grace of the Spirit ; it 
cannot be an element of progress unless it be allied with 
hope, and hope follows from a persuasion of the good- 
ness and mercy of God in Christ that cannot exist 
without calling out love, and which has love for the 
foundation of the belief in its possibility. The con- 
science, witnessing of guilt, if untouched by love (as 
we may see by the dealings of man with man), works 
rather hatred of the being against whom we have 
sinned ; whereas, let there be love in the heart, there 
is genuine and sincere repentance and self-accusation. 
It is this love which is the foundation of true " godly 
sorrow" for sin, of endeavors after a holy life, of living 
faith and trust, of the right fear of God, and of all 
Christian progress ; and this love it is the object of the 
internal grace of the Holy Spirit to produce. 

In speaking thus of the internal influence of the 
Spirit as exerted on the heart ; of the external as 
directed to inform the mind ; and of the sacramental 
operation as giving back, in measure and degree, the 
lost power to the will, I do not wish to be understood 
as denying that each faculty receives benefit from each 
operation. The soul, in truth, is one and indivisible, 
whole in every part; and therefore whatever influence 
is exerted upon it by Divine grace is exerted upon all 
the faculties, or rather upon the soul itself in all its 
functions; for those which we call faculties are but 
functions of the soul. To speak of the heart, or the 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 215 

mind, or the will as a faculty, is not to assert that each 
is a separate division of the soul, but that each is the 
soul itself in different relations. They are no more 
separable from each other than are length, breadth, 
and thickness in space. The heart is the soul itself in 
relation with things to be desired or shunned ; the 
mind is the soul itself in relation with things to be 
perceived ; the will is the soul itself in that relation in 
which deeds are to be done. As the three dimensions 
of space everywhere interpenetrate, and there is no 
position in length which has not position in breadth 
and thickness, so these three functions everywhere 
interpenetrate, — each is in all and all in each. The 
simplest exercise of the mind, attention, whether ob- 
servant or recollective, has in it, however uncon- 
sciously, a desire of the heart, and an effort of the 
will. And as it is with the soul actively, so it is with 
it passively. Hence, when the Divine Spirit exerts 
His influence upon it, in whatever way, He touches 
all alike, — He touches the soul itself, the one indivisi- 
ble essence, and therefore excites and exalts every fac- 
ulty. But as the grace is diversely exhibited, it has 
relation to one and another function or faculty, in de- 
veloping which it chiefly acts, acting on the other sub- 
ordinate^ . Thus, while the external grace influences 
the heart by giving it the object without which the 
internal grace would excite only a blind and aimless 
instinct of affection, its principal relation is to the soul 
as perceptive and knowing; and so, also, while the 
internal grace operates upon the mind, quickening it 
to attend to and receive the external presentations of 
the Word, its principal effect is to arouse the soul to 
the love of things divine; and, in like manner, while 



216 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the sacramental communication of the life of Christ is 
to restore, as far as may be, what Adam lost of all 
spiritual power, both of heart and mind, as well as of 
will, yet as this power works outwardly principally in 
Christian acts, it is rightly assigned chiefly to the will. 
The results, the phenomena are apparent in these rela- 
tions ; by them, therefore, we have made the division 
necessary in treating the parts of the subject in consecu- 
tive order. 

In further prosecuting the inquiry respecting the 
grace of the Holy Spirit as given to the regenerate, 
we meet the question : What are the respective spheres 
and what is the mutual connection of the grace of the 
Son and that of the Spirit, both being possessed by the 
child of God? 

And first it may seem to require explanation how — 
if the communication of the grace of the Son is, as we 
have said, the regeneration of the Christian, that is, 
the true beginning of his spiritual life — how the soul 
can be the recipient of spiritual influence before it is 
thus spiritually alive — how it possesses the capacity, 
under the grace of the Spirit, of repenting and believ- 
ing, while yet unregenerate, and therefore dead. The 
explanation is the more necessary because the want of 
it is the foundation of that popular misconception 
which confounds conversion with regeneration, and 
both with the renewal and sanctification of the Chris- 
tian believer. The three things are, in truth, distinct : 
Conversion is the term appropriated in Holy Scrip- 
ture 3 to denote a turning to obey the prevenient grace 



a In the form of the verb; the noun, I believe, does not occur 
except in Acts, xv. 3. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 217 

of the Holy Spirit from a former life of sin ; Regener- 
ation is the communication of the life of Christ in the 
Sacrament, to which conversion (in the adult) is pre- 
paratory; and Renewal or Sanctification is the subse- 
quent growth into complete holiness. That the last is 
the act denoted by renewal is plain from the admo- 
nition of St. Paul, several times repeated in other 
forms, and addressed, it is important to observe, to re- 
generate Christians : "Be renewed in the spirit of your 
mind ; and . . . put on the new man, which, after 
God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. " a 

The difficulty arises from pressing the metaphor of 
life and death, which the Scripture applies to the 
spiritual state of man, as if it were taken from the 
physical condition, with the heathen opposition of ex- 
istence and non-existence. The description of the 
state of the Christian as a spiritual life has for its cor- 
relative idea that the natural man is in a state of death ; 
and this is directly "asserted by St. Paul in several 
places, as in the fifth chapter of Romans, "If through 
the offence of one, the many be dead, " b etc.; in the 
fifth chapter of II. Corinthians, "We thus judge that 
if one died for all, then were all dead;" c and in the 
second chapter of Ephesians, "You hath He quick- 
ened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." d But 
the use of the word "dead" does not amount to a de- 
claration of annihilation, or total paralysis of the spir- 
itual powers of man ; but it rather implies that total 
separation from the kingdom and family of God, which 
is wrought by innate unrighteousness. It is easy of 

a Eph. iv. 23, 24. b Rom. v. 15. c II. Cor. v. 14. d Eph. ii. I. 
19* 



218 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

verification by any one who will look, with the help of 
his concordance, over the passages in which the Apostle 
speaks of natural death, that he does not give the word 
the heathen meaning of dissolution, even as referred to 
the body ; but, viewing it in the light of the Christian 
faith in immortality and the resurrection, he contem- 
plates it as another state of existence — a state of sepa- 
ration from that world in which the man existed while 
a tenant of the body — another sphere in which the dead 
are as truly existent as are the living in this. From this 
point of view he transfers the word to the mysteries of 
religion. Death and life, therefore, are terms of oppo- 
sition, describing states which exclude each other, in 
the former of which, existence is as real as in the latter, 
the application of either term to either member of the 
opposition being determined by the relation to the 
other of the party spoken of. Hence the Apostle's 
apparent indifference in calling either a state of death 
or life. The unregenerate are "dead in sin," as being 
in a state of separation from the kingdom of God, and 
under the dominion of the devil, heirs by nature of that 
punishment which is called eternal death. Christians 
are "dead with Christ," being by their membership in 
the Church, separate from the world. Indeed, Chris- 
tians are more often said to be dead, in relation to the 
world, than sinners in relation to God — thus marking 
more plainly the Apostle's sense to be "existence in 
separation"— life in another sphere — a relative, not a 
real dissolution — as the meaning of the word. 

But if the man exists, while thus spiritually dead — 
especially if he exists with a capacity to be restored — 
it is evident he must possess the essential qualities 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 219 

and necessary faculties and powers, however weakened 
and debased, without which his soul would no longer 
be a spiritual nature. These faculties may be weak- 
ened and shrivelled up, and what remains of them may 
lie torpid and dormant, but they are there ; and there- 
fore, according to the measure of existence which 
remains in them, they are capable of responding to 
the Divine grace. At the same time it cannot be 
doubted that in the application of the figure of death to 
express the state of the sinner, there is reference to the 
loss which his spiritual nature has sustained by original 
sin. There is an evident discrimination of the means 
which define the separation from the worlds respect- 
ively of righteousness and of sin. The Christian is 
dead to the world, because he is possessed of a higher 
hidden life, in which the world has no share ; the sin- 
ner, on the other hand, is dead in sin because of the 
depravation and degradation of his spiritual powers, 
consequent upon the fall; he is thrown out of relation 
to the kingdom of God, by inherent inability to work 
righteousness according to God's law. Hence his state 
of spiritual death is defined by these two facts, that he 
still exists as a spiritual nature, possessing all the essential 
powers and faculties of a soul ; but that all those facul- 
ties are weakened and depraved by sin. As possessed 
of these powers and faculties, however, he has a ca- 
pacity, while unregenerate, of being acted upon by the 
Spirit of God, — a capacity, not only of receiving the 
regeneration, but of receiving and answering to those 
impulses of grace which are preparatory to the regener- 
ation ; just as the souls of the dead, though unable by 
their own power to reassume their bodies, have a 



220 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

capacity of receiving the Divine impulse which will call 
them forth clothed with bodies at the Resurrection. 

Here, however, is the distinction between the re- 
sponse to the Divine grace in the state of death and 
the state of life. Just as we must suppose the dead, 
while without the body, to be capable of some of the 
acts of life, as consciousness, thought, the communica- 
tion of ideas with each other, and yet to lead a maimed, 
imperfect existence, bereft of the natural power of the 
united soul and body: so the soul of the man dead in 
sin, though to some extent responsive to the Spirit's 
influence, answers to it in a maimed, imperfect, power- 
less way, incapable of that steady, continuous righteous- 
ness which God requires. Nor is it capable of sustain- 
ing the weight of the Divine impulse, and the blaze of 
the Divine light, in such measure as is granted to the 
holy after regeneration. It must receive an inward 
strength, a reorganization of its substance (so to speak), 
to be enabled to respond perfectly to the motions of 
grace. The owl's eye must be made the eagle's, the 
strength of the shadow of Hades must be made that of 
the new man of the resurrection, by a new birth. It 
needs, therefore, for continuous holiness, besides the 
Divine impulse upo?i it, the replanting of the lost 
strength in the soul, the communication of the power 
to bear that influence. Hence the possession of the 
grace of the Spirit by the regenerate is called His "in- 
dwelling" — a closer personal presence than is granted 
to the unregenerate, to whom this term is never applied j 
and consequently, conversion is an event of far less 
magnitude than the subsequent renewal or sanctifica- 
tion; while regeneration stands between the two, as 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 221 

the restoration from the glorified Divine humanity of 
Christ our Lord, of that life and power which enables 
the converted sinner to "go on to perfection." Not, 
indeed, that all the "infection of nature" is removed 
by this gift ; but that the grace of Christ enables the 
soul, under the influence of the Spirit, to overcome it, 
and live no longer to the flesh, but to God. 

We may see from this discussion what are the respec- 
tive spheres of operation of the grace of the Son, and 
the grace of the Spirit. The grace of the Son in the 
soul operates in its inmost nature, is directed to restore 
it in its essence which underlies all the phenomena of 
its activity ; while the operations of the grace of the 
Spirit is upon the soul, directed to elicit the spiritual 
phenomena, and to call forth into action the qualities 
it possesses as a spiritual being, whether in its unregen- 
erate or its regenerate estate. The grace of the Spirit 
acts upon it as a breath from above, stimulating and 
exciting its powers, as the pure air stimulates and in- 
vigorates the bodily organs ; the grace of the Son en- 
ters into the soul and reconstitutes it, as bread and 
wine enter into and reconstitute the wasting body. 
The one acts within the soul, the other acts upon it. 

And this, so far as relates to the grace of the Son, I 
conceive to be the sense of Hooker in this passage 
(before quoted) : ' ' The person of Adam is not in us, 
but his nature, and the corruption of that nature de- 
rived into all men by propagation; Christ, having 
Adam's nature, as we have, but incorrupt, deriveth 
not nature, but incorruption, and that ijnmediately from 
His own person into all that belong to Him." This 
view is confirmed, and at the same time guarded, by 



222 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

another passage on a succeeding page: "His Church, 
and every member thereof, is in Him by original deri- 
vation, and He personally in them by way of mystical 
association wrought through the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
which they that are His receive from Him, and to- 
gether with the same [gift] what benefit soever the vital 
force of His body and blood may yield; yea, by steps and 
degrees they receive the complete measure of all such 
Divine grace as doth sanctify and save throughout till 
the day of their final exaltation to a state of fellowship 
in glory with Him whose partakers they now are in 
those things that tend to glory. As for any mixture of 
the substance of His flesh with ours, the participation 
which we have of Christ includeth no such kind of gross 
surmise. ' ' 

At this point the reason will be observed for the 
statement made in the last chapter that the grace of 
the Son, as "the Life" is, like all other of His grace, 
a derivative from Him as now existing in the two 
natures, Divine and human. It is needless to remark 
that the last sentence in the preceding paragraph is 
directed against the Romish figment of transubstantia- 
tion — a notion as gross and low in divinity as it is 
absurd and baseless in philosophy. If the substance of 
the flesh of Christ entered into ours, it would not, as 
such, be in us that "life" which His grace is said to 
be. But it has pleased God that the reparation of 
the loss which our nature sustained at the fall should 
be derived from Him, the Redeemer; and therefore 
that His grace should be given to humanity after the 
analogy of the derivation of life from man to man. 
"For as in Adam all die [that is, are born in the 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 223 

natural state subject to death], even sq in Christ shall 
all be made alive." Hence this economy implies a 
derivation of grace from Him as man to us as men; 
from His humanity, purified and glorified, to our cor- 
rupt and fallen humanity. And this is the reason that 
we are said to be " members of His body, of His flesh, 
and of His bones," vivified by His life, as His own 
body is. What is the mode in which the regeneration 
is wrought we do not know. The gift and the man- 
ner of its communication are transcendent mysteries. 
The means by which it is communicated and the reality 
of the operation are made known to us in Holy Scrip- 
ture ; but the manner how is as mysterious and impene- 
trable to human thought as the mystery of His birth, 
of His Resurrection and Ascension. That a vital 
power is given by Him to the regenerate, through the 
operation of the Spirit in regeneration, the result of 
which is a "new birth," a "new creation," — this is 
certain ; more than this is no subject of speculation to 
the devout and humble Christian. 

While the grace of the Son, as "Life," however, 
works that change in the substance and essence of the 
regenerate, which underlies the phenomena of con- 
sciousness, the grace of the Holy Spirit, it is next to 
be observed, is connected more consciously with the 
phenomena themselves of the religious life. We are 
conscious of the effects of the one, while we are not 
immediately conscious of the effects of the other. 

The substance and the phenomena being distin- 
guished, that which works in the substance can reveal 
itself to the consciousness only in the intuition of sub- 
stance, while that which elicits the phenomena will 



224 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

manifest itself by the phenomena. But the soul is only 
conscious of itself as substance in the affirmation of 
its indivisible unity, as the ego which, as an idea, is in- 
capable of intensive or extensive increase or diminu- 
tion ; and this being the full expression of the soul's 
substantial existence, it cannot go back to what enters 
into and underlies this consciousness, — to what brought 
it into being and makes it what it is from time to time. 
It cannot get behind the affirmation, "I am;" and 
there is no combination of facts in that affirmation, 
the analysis of which will tell it what lies behind it. 
Whatever faculty or power of the soul is in activity, it 
presents to the consciousness but the one intuition of 
an existing substance, which is the subject of that ac- 
tivity, and of which that activity is the phenomenon. 
The intuition of self-consciousness is the same precisely 
in its affirmation of myself whether I say, "I love," 
"I hope," "I believe," "I think," or "I act." How 
the various powers whose acts are expressed by these 
words coexist in the indivisible unity of myself as re- 
vealed to my consciousness, I am ignorant. I can gain 
no intuition of them. In other words, what powers or 
faculties underlie the affirmation of being are concealed 
from direct consciousness. And therefore, a fortiori, 
that Divine grace of the Son which lies still deeper 
than these powers, operating, as it were, from under- 
neath to revivify and regenerate, must operate uncon- 
sciously. Its results may be apparent at last in the 
magnified phenomena of the soul's active life ; but 
itself is contained in the affirmation of substance, "I 
am," which suffers neither increase nor diminution, 
whether I am equal to an atom or to a world ; whether 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 225 

the spiritual life is that of the babe or of the strong 
man in Christ. 

Underneath this simple consciousness of an indivisi- 
ble entity lie, it is not to be doubted, powers and facul- 
ties, or attributes of the soul, which are the subjective 
elements of the phenomena that reveal themselves to 
that entity. But the phenomena themselves, whether 
affections, or thoughts, or intuitions, or sensations, 
whether moral or mental, cannot be produced by their 
own self-activity ; they are dependent upon influences 
from without, and the consciousness of the diverse 
powers is all contained in the consciousness of the phe- 
nomena, as phenomena, and therefore as distinguished 
from self. The phenomena of the soul's regenerate 
active life, therefore, as objects of spiritual experience, 
testify rather of the influence brought to bear- from 
without itself than of that which takes place within its 
substance ; they testify of the grace of the Holy Spirit 
upon the soul. That I exist is the testimony of con- 
sciousness to my substantial being ; that I love, that I 
hope, that I believe, that I think and act is the testi- 
mony of consciousness to the phenomena supervening 
upon my substantial existence — inferring within me, 
indeed, the powers, or faculties, or capabilities of love, 
hope, faith, thought, action ; but implying also another 
influence besides myself, acting upon me, and always 
referred by consciousness to that influence. Outside 
of the phenomena, I am not conscious of the powers or 
faculties they suppose, as I am, or conceive myself to 
be, of my existence ; those powers never reveal them- 
selves immediately to my consciousness as my exist- 
ence does ; I can in thought separate from myself not 



226 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

only the phenomena but the powers, but I cannot 
separate from myself in thought, my existence ; I do 
not separate the " I " which loves from the ' ' I " which 
believes; but I do separate the "I" which loves from 
the love which I feel. Hence the internal phenomena 
of the soul are always, in immediate consciousness, con- 
templated on their objective side and in their objective 
relations. Under this law, therefore, the phenomena 
of the spiritual life are naturally referred to the grace 
which operates upon us, rather than to that which 
operates within us; for it is in more immediate con- 
nection with the grace of the Spirit than with the 
grace of the Son. There is a love-faculty and a faith- 
faculty, as well as a love-phenomenon and a faith-phe- 
nomenon ; but the grace which is more immediately 
concerned with the production of the phenomenon will 
in ordinary thought be counted its cause, rather than 
that whose operation is in the faculty, — whose imme- 
diate effect is unconscious, and of which the result is 
not apparent till the third or fourth remove. In this 
sense, then, it is to be understood that the grace of 
the Son is substantial and the grace of the Spirit 
phenomenal. 

These remarks are valuable, chiefly as showing us 
the grounds on which in Holy Scripture the graces 
which are in one view an outgrowth of the life derived 
from our Saviour, are more immediately referred to the 
grace of the blessed Spirit as produced by His imme- 
diate influence on the regenerate nature. Thus, St. 
Paul tells the Galatians : "The fruit of the Spirit is 
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance." And so our Saviour 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 227 

promised Him to be a "Comforter" to His disciples, 
bringing forth in them the joy, and hope, and peace in 
believing, which is the source of the Christian's satis- 
faction in the Gospel. These passages, and such as 
these, are not contrary to the doctrine of the grace of 
the Son ; but they add to it that of the grace of the 
Spirit. 

In this manner, also, is explained that view of the 
grace of the Spirit, according to which it is opposed to 
"the flesh," as a ruling principle of the active life. 
For this opposition supposes this grace to operate upon 
the soul, as a force from without, in the same manner 
as "the flesh" does. For the flesh, although it is a 
part of the complex being of the man as a whole, is ex- 
ternal to the soul, in which the essence of his being 
consists, and therefore operates upon it, in conveying 
to it its own disorderly and unruly desires. It would 
be manifestly less symmetrical in the analogy, there- 
fore, to oppose to "the flesh" that grace whose opera- 
tion is within the soul, a part of its very being, — where 
the object is to draw attention to the Christian calling, 
as implying obedience to the rule of a power con- 
sciously distinct from itself. The soul is considered in 
this relation as placed between two powers, of which 
the one is the "flesh" or carnal nature, and the other 
the "spirit" or the grace of the Holy Spirit; and 
from the one or the other of these, and the emotions, 
affections, or passions which are its fruits, the will 
assumes the motive on which it acts. Thus St. Paul 
exhorts the Galatian Christians: "Walk in the Spirit, 
and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the 
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against 



228 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

the flesh : and these are contrary, the one to the other ; 
so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. " a Here 
it is to be noted that "the Spirit" is not the natural de- 
sires of the spiritual nature of man (as if the Apostle 
were advancing some Manichean doctrine), but the 
motions of the grace of the Holy Spirit in the soul ; and 
that to "walk in the Spirit" is equivalent to the phrase 
" to walk after the Spirit" in the eighth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans, where the Apostle draws out 
this opposition at great length: "There is therefore 
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ 
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath 
made me free from the law of sin and death. For 
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through 
the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of 
sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 
that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in 
us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of 
the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of 
the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death ; but 
to be spiritually minded is life and peace. . . But ye 
are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the 
Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not 
the- Spirit of Christ he is none of His. And if Christ 
be in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the 
Spirit is life because of righteousness. . . Brethren, 
we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye 
through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ve 

a Gal. v. 16, 17. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 229 

shall live." So to the Ephesians : "Be not drunk 
with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the 
Spirit ; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns 
and spiritual songs." 

The mutual relation, then, of the grace of the Son 
and the grace of the Spirit is that of the seed and the 
conditions of its growth. The heart is prepared to re- 
ceive it by prevenient grace, working repentance and 
faith; the good seed is then implanted in regeneration, 
and after that the grace of the Spirit is as the air, and 
heat, and light, and moisture, causing it to spring and 
grow up, and bring forth fruit, — assimilating to itself in 
the process all the powers and faculties of the nature 
of man. 

The carrying forward this process is called in Holy 
Scripture renewing or sanctification, — renewing, as it 
is the gradual assimilation of the disorganized elements 
of our nature to the Divine seed implanted in us, and 
their reorganization in the likeness of Christ ; sanctifi- 
cation, as it is that restoration to holiness, that ad- 
vancement of the consecration to God, that acceptable- 
ness before Him which is the result of the inherency 
and operation of Divine grace. 

The words sanctification and renewal, however, are 
not precisely equivalent ; because the former is used in 
Holy Scripture in two senses, to denote (1) a consecra- 
tion or separation of the person to God ; and (2) the 
being made holy in heart and life, — in which last sense 
it is the equivalent of "renewing." In the first sense, 
sanctification is attributed to Christ, in the second to 
the Holy Spirit. It may be well to verify this by an 
examination of passages. 



230 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

1. "Paul, . . . unto the Church of God which is 
at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, 
called to be saints." This is the opening of the first 
Epistle to the Corinthians, and the ground on which 
they are said to be " sanctified" is evidently their bap- 
tismal consecration. So, in the thirtieth verse of the 
first chapter: " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of 
God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and 
sanctification, and redemption," — which text, so far as 
the present subject is concerned, may receive illustra- 
tion from such passages as these: "Both He that sanc- 
tifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one : for 
which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren. " a 
"Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. 
. . . By the which will we are sanctified through the 
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . 
For by one offering He hath perfected forever them 
that are sanctified." 15 The connection of this sanctifi- 
cation with baptism is seen again in Ephesians, v. 25, 
26: " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for 
it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
washing of water by the word, that He might present 
it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing ; but that it should be holy 
and without blemish." In this passage, however, the 
first sense passes over into the second, the Apostle 
looking forward to the completion of the work of re- 
demption in the glory of the Church triumphant. The 
same combination of the two senses is evident also in 
the following: "Know ye not that the unrighteous 

a Heb. ii. II. b Heb. x. 10, 14. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 231 

shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not de- 
ceived : neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adul- 
terers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with 
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, 
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the king- 
dom of God. And such were some of you: but ye 
are washed [a reference to baptism], but ye are sanc- 
tified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." a 

2. In the second sense in which the word is gen- 
erally used in theology, it occurs in the following 
places: I. Thes. iv. 3 : "This is the will of God, even 
your sanctification." lb. v. 23: "The very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole 
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." II. Thes. ii. 13 : 
"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salva- 
tion, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of 
the truth." St. John, xvii. 17, 19: "Sanctify them 
through thy truth: Thy Word is Truth." " For their 
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanc- 
tified through the truth." These, with the exception 
of Heb. x. 29 (in the same sense as Heb. x. 10, 14), 
are all the passages in which the word "sanctify" or 
" sanctification" is used in the New Testament with any 
bearing on this subject. But the same root appears in 
all the words translated ' ' holy, " " holiness, " " saints, ' ' 
etc., and the connection of our sanctification with the 
Spirit is expressed in His very name, "the Holy Spirit. ' ' 

3. That our "renewal" is the same with our sancti- 
fication, in the second sense, is plain, from the fact 

a I. Cor. vi. 9-1 1. 



232 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

that St. Paul exhorts those who are already Christians 
to labor for it as not yet attained in its perfection. 
This he does in such passages as the following: "I 
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service. And be not conformed to this world : but be 
ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that ye 
may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and per- 
fect will of God." a "This I say therefore, and tes- 
tify in the Lord, . . . that ye put off concerning the 
former conversation the old man, which is corrupt ac- 
cording to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the 
spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, 
which after God is created in righteousness and true 
holiness." 5 "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye 
have put off the ,old man, with his deeds ; and have 
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge 
after the image of Him that created him." c This ad- 
monition recalls to the Colossian Christians their 
Christian profession, and exhorts them to live up to it, 
truly "putting on the new man" as they have pro- 
fessed. These texts (the two first more particularly) 
fix the meaning of that much-controverted one, Titus, 
iii. 5: "Not by works of righteousness which we 
have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, 
by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
Holy Ghost;" where the "washing of regeneration" 
is the baptismal grace, and the " renewing of the Holy 
Ghost" another and subsequent operation, carrying on 

a Rom. xii. I, 2. b Eph. iv. 17, 22-24. c Col. iii. 9, 10. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 233 

the baptismal state to the perfection of the Christian 
life. 

The grace of the Holy Spirit in this relation is 
named by theologians aiding, or assisting grace. 

It is further to be observed that this grace is given 
in larger measure, and with a more intimate and con- 
stant presence of the Holy Spirit, as an endowment of 
the estate of regeneration, — a presence which is called 
the "indwelling" or constant abiding of the Spirit 
with the accepted members of Christ. " I will pray 
the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, 
that He may abide with you forever ; even the Spirit 
of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it 
seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye know 
Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." a 
So St. Peter, preaching to the multitude on the day of 
Pentecost: "Repent, and be baptized every one of 
you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the 
gift of the Holy Ghost ;" b where the increased meas- 
ure of the Spirit's presence is connected with the sacra- 
ment of initiation into the Church. "The love of 
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
which is given unto us." c " Ye are not in the flesh, but 
in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. 
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is 
none of His." d " Know ye not that ye are the temple 
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" e 
And many others to the same effect, all predicated upon 
the membership of the' Church which is the body of 
Christ. 

a John, xiv. 16, 17. b Acts, ii. 38. c Rom. v. 5. 

d Rom. viii. 9. e I. Cor. iii. 16. 



234 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

The operation of the Spirit upon the regenerate, 
therefore, is more powerful than upon the unregen- 
erate, and reaches farther in its effects, producing in 
the soul which is obedient to it, all the graces, com- 
forts, hopes, joys, and works of the spiritual life. But 
it is not necessary to understand that it differs in kind 
from that before treated of. The altered relation of 
the Christian to his Saviour changes the conditions of 
reception ; the grace differs in degree, not in kind, — 
just as the same air passing through the pipes of an 
organ produces in one one sound and in another an- 
other, according to its volume and velocity. Hence 
the same division applies here which we before made 
use of. The sacramental influence is realized in the 
Holy Communion, conveying to the worthy recipient 
the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ 
which that Sacrament was ordained to exhibit. The 
external influence is as necessary to instruct the disci- 
ple more fully in faith and duty as it was to awaken 
him to the first knowledge of the Gospel; it enforces 
the instruction and carries it home, by the constant 
operations and special dispensations of Divine Provi- 
dence, and bears upon him and moulds him to the 
Christian pattern by the social organization of the 
Church of which he is a member. By the internal 
grace, the heart and conscience are cultivated and re- 
newed, developing those holy affections, that devout 
fear, that tender conscience, those manifold phenomena 
of the heart which are all generalized under and con- 
tained in the expression, " the love of God." Under 
these influences in the regenerate state, the faith which 
before the gift of the grace of Christ was but a pre- 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 235 

paratory, imperfect, provisional faith, now becomes 
" faith working by love;" repentance loses its need of 
sorrow, and becomes the continual renunciation of sin, 
the habitual purity of self-watchfulness, and the con- 
stant holiness of a heavenly walk ; the act which pre- 
vious to regeneration could reach no farther than the 
Sacrament, becomes the communion with God in the 
beauty of an acceptable life. And in this way the 
grace of the Holy Spirit is the indispensable auxiliary 
by which the inner life of Christ develops into the 
outward life of the Christian. 

The mediation between the grace of the Son and 
the grace of the Spirit, however, is the will of the 
Christian ; and therefore the actual results in the Chris- 
tian life at any given time are complicated with the 
imperfections of his obedience and also with the re- 
mains of original sin. The theoretical beauty of the 
Divine economy falls short of practical realization by 
so much as the man has yielded to adverse influences 
or suffered himself to be tempted to sin. "The infec- 
tion of nature doth remain in the regenerate also," is 
the language of the Church, and the experience of 
every individual proves its truth. The tendency to 
sin is only gradually overcome by earnest endeavors 
after perfect obedience ; and therefore Christian im- 
provement and sanctification is progressive, following 
upon growing habits of well-doing, and corresponding 
conquest over the motions and temptations of the flesh, 
and its abettors, the world and the devil. Besides, the 
Divine grace operates not to a compulsory, but to a free 
obedience, and therefore leaves the will of the regen- 
erate in a freedom which it is possible to abuse. Hence 



236 Threefold Grace of the Holy Tri?iity. 

it is not to be wondered at if the results are only par- 
tially manifest in this world ; they were never intended 
to be more perfect than is consistent with the designed 
economy. Nor is it to be argued from the evil lives of 
some who have received the Sacrament of regeneration, 
that the doctrine fails by the test of experience, since 
all the lapses and falls are fully accounted for by the 
perversion of their freedom and neglect of their privi- 
leges on the part of those who fall back into condem- 
nation. The Christian standing of every one at any 
given time is the result of the combined action of 
grace and self; and since all actions have a reflex in- 
fluence upon the agent, the acts of sin will operate to 
freeze the heart against the germination of the seed of 
life, and to render it unresponsive to the grace of the 
Spirit ; while the acts of righteousness and obedience 
will open the heart to those influences and accelerate 
the growth of the ''tree of righteousness. " a 

There is one effect of the grace of the Spirit which 
has not yet been noticed, — the co-ordinating the mem- 
bers of the Church into one body, so that each is edi- 
fied by the other and all work in common. "By 
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." b This 
is the work of the Spirit, because the Spirit is essen- 
tially the love of God, which, being shed abroad in the 
hearts of men, produces in us the love to our neigh- 
bors. Thus, in the harmony of divine love, the pecu- 
liarities of each individual character, subordinated to one 
common principle, assign the different labors and posi- 
tions to each member of God's Church — to one being 

* Isaiah, lxi. 3. b I. Cor. xii. 13. 



The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 237 

given "the word of wisdom," to another "the word 
of knowledge," — some being "Apostles," and some 
"Evangelists," and some "pastors and teachers," — 
the very imperfection of one member being balanced 
by the imperfections of another ; the tendencies of one 
in one direction being balanced by the opposite tend- 
encies of another, and so, all co-operating to carry 
on the work of the Church on every side, in complete 
harmony and mutual subordination of part to part. He 
who will study the influence of individual and national 
intellectual tendencies in preserving the faith whole and 
entire, as evidenced in the history of the Ecumenical 
councils, will there see one illustration of the scriptural 
representation of the one body having many members. 
The other effects of the grace of the Spirit, the "com- 
fort" of the Paraclete, the "helping our infirmities," 
the " witness with our spirits," the strength, and peace, 
and joy, and whatsoever other fruits are brought forth 
in the Christian heart, may easily be assigned their 
places in the system of which the principles are here 
developed. It is not needed to carry the inquiry any 
farther. The effects are as various in manifestation as 
individual men, and as manifold as the circumstances 
of life ; and an attempt at a full classification would be 
as presumptuous as impossible. Only, let it be remem- 
bered, that though the grace of the Holy Spirit is 
"extra-sacramental," yet it is given in increasing 
measure, in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, in pub- 
lic worship, in all religious duties, and especially in the 
Apostolic rite of confirmation, and that its withdrawal 
is consequent upon the neglect of these means of grace 
and upon continuance in sin. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PLACE OF THE SACRAMENTS IN THE SYSTEM 
OF GRACE. 

T^HAT the grace of Christ, the Son, is of volun- 
tary reception, is the ground of the institution of 
the Holy Sacraments as parts of the Divine economy. 
It remains, therefore, to assign them their place in that 
economy. 

It has been sufficiently shown in the preceding chap- 
ters how the grace of the Son differs in respect of volun- 
tary reception from the grace of the Spirit. The latter 
being the prime mover in drawing man to the way of 
life, operates upon the will before any exercise of its 
activity. It is the condition by which he is able to ex- 
ercise his will in the reception of Christ. It has for its 
object, whether as prevenient or as assisting grace, to 
free the enslaved will, to lead man to seek for and lay 
hold upon the grace of Christ, and to prepare him for 
its reception ; and therefore it must be given antece- 
dently to, as well as together with every human act. 
But the grace of the Son of God, being the gift offered 
to the sinner to accomplish his redemption, is made of 
voluntary acceptance, that his restoration may be 
wrought under the conditions of his freedom as was his 
fall. The one is a gift forced/ as it were, upon man, 

a Gen. vi. 3. " And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always 
strive with man." 
(238) 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 239 

though not so but that he can resist it ; the other is a gift 
so offered that it may be freely appropriated. Hence, 
while the internal grace of the Spirit is given without 
as well as in means, the grace of Christ is imparted in 
connection with certain acts appointed by our Lord, 
which have the twofold design of being, on the one 
hand, tests of the faith and obedience of the recipient, 
and so. of his desire and endeavor after saving grace ; 
and, on the other hand, of being seals and vessels of 
that grace, conferring it upon him in time and place 
determined by the acts. These acts are the two Sac- 
raments of Baptism and the Holy Communion. 

The Sacraments, then, have relation to the grace of 
Christ, and are the appointed means of its communica- 
tion. This is their distinctive use in the economy of 
the Church. They are, in their primary intent, means 
of applying the grace, not of the Spirit, but of the Son ; 
though the possession of a larger measure of the grace 
of the Spirit follows necessarily from being made par- 
taker of the grace of Christ. In scholastic language, 
the grace of the Spirit is an accidental, the grace of the 
Son, the essential gift of the Sacrament. And the ground 
of the institution of Sacraments is, as was said, that they 
may be acts of voluntary performance, by which the 
faithful recipient may take to himself this saving grace. 

The proof that the Sacraments are thus related to 
Christ is the language of Holy Scripture, which assigns 
them this place. With respect to Baptism, we have 
the words of St. Paul in the sixth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans: " Know ye not, that so many 
of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into His death ? Therefore we are buried with Him 



240 Ttireefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

by baptism into death : that like as Christ was raised 
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we 
also should walk in newness of life." Here the idea 
of union with Christ as the result of the Sacrament un- 
derlies every expression. So also in I. Cor. xii. 12, 
13 : "For as the body is one and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being many, are 
one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we 
all baptized into one body ; . . . and have been all made 
to drink into one Spirit." In this passage the three facts 
are distinctly brought forward, that the Spirit is the 
invisible agent in the Sacrament ; that our baptism 
brings us into Christ's body — that is, makes us mem- 
bers of Him, conveys to us the grace of His life, and 
makes us thereby, as it were, " continuate with Him ;" a 
and that, as a collateral benefit, we are given a larger 
measure of the grace of the Spirit. But the whole text 
turns on the similitude of the body, showing that our 
union with Christ in the Sacrament is its principal end. 
The same truth is evident in Galatians, iii. 27 : "For 
as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ;" where, if the phrase "have put on 
Christ" refers to the public profession made in bap- 
tism, the other phrase, "baptized into Christ," most 
certainly asserts the inward oneness of the grace of 
union. The phraseology of the passage from Romans 
is reproduced in Colossians, ii. 12: "Buried with Him 
in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through 
the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him 
from the dead." 

a Hooker, b. v. ch. lvi. 7. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 241 

In view of texts such as these, no difficulty need be 
felt in regard to our Lord's statement to Nicodemus : 
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he 
cannot enter into the kingdom of God;" a nor in re- 
gard to that of St. Peter: "Repent and be baptized in 
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and 
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. " b They 
harmonize perfectly with the doctrine here delivered. 
The one text declares the agent by whom the regenera- 
tion is wrought ; the other, the enlarged measure of the 
Spirit's presence consequent upon the regeneration. 
But the regeneration itself consists in the communica- 
tion of the grace of Christ, and our incorporation 
thereby into His body. 

That the Sacrament of Holy Communion has relation 
to the grace of the Son is still more clear. It appears 
in the words of institution: "Take, eat, this is my 
body." " Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood." 
"Do this in remembrance of me." The only other 
passage in which the Holy Communion is openly men- 
tioned in connection with the grace it conveys is, I. 
Cor. x. xi., where, in the sixteenth verse of the former 
chapter, St. Paul says : " The cup of blessing which we 
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? 
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of 
the body of Christ?" But we cannot doubt that this 
appointment of the way in which the Divine gift is 
granted was anticipated in the sixth chapter of St. 
John's Gospel, which records our Lord's discourse in 
the synagogue of Capernaum, respecting the eating of 

a John, iii. 5. b Acts, ii. 38. 



242 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

His flesh and the drinking of His blood. All these 
passages connect the Sacrament specially and distinct- 
ively with the grace of Christ. 

A more profound reason, therefore, than appears at 
first sight, underlies the decision of the Reformers, 
when they rejected the Romish enumeration of seven 
Sacraments and restricted the word to these two only. 
If we seek for a definition more inward than they have 
given us in the Church Catechism, we may say that 
Sacraments are the outward and visible signs ordained 
by Christ to convey His personal grace. Those acts, 
such as confirmation, in which the grace of the Holy 
Spirit is specially vouchsafed, we call rites, as not so 
closely connected with the special grace of Christ. 

The Sacraments having the twofold design of being 
tests of faith and obedience, and seals and channels of 
grace, have a corresponding twofold outward character. 
They are acts of the administrator, and acts of the re- 
cipient. The administrator stands on the part of 
Christ; he is His "steward" and "ambassador," em- 
powered to act on His behalf. Christ acts thus through 
His minister in that which is visible, because by His 
ascension into heaven He is Himself invisible. The 
recipient acts in his own person. The Sacrament, 
therefore, is of the nature of a covenant ratified openly 
and visibly by the two parties, each attesting something 
invisible. The minister, by Divine, authority, pledges 
the invisible grace; the recipient, on his part, con- 
fesses his faith and trust in Christ, and shows his pur- 
pose of obedience to the law of God. 

The force of the act of the administrator rests upon 
the promise of Christ, pledging that He will honor the 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 243 

commission by which His servant acts, with the aid of 
His Spirit and the communication of grace. The 
effect of the act being invisible, it is beheld by faith ; 
it needs, therefore, the Divine promise that faith may 
have a sure foundation. The formal promise of our 
Saviour is preserved for us in the Gospels, in the com- 
mission of His ministers, and the institution of the acts, 
in the words by which they are commanded, and in 
such expositions of their intention as the Apostles 
afford in their inspired teachings. These last will 
appear as occasion offers. The commission to baptize, 
making baptism of universal necessity, is set down in 
the words : " Go ye and make disciples of all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. " a "He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not 
shall be damned." The commission to administer the 
Eucharist is contained in the words of institution, 
spoken "in the night in which He was betrayed:" 
"Take, eat, this is my body." " This is my blood of 
the New Testament. " "Do this in remembrance of 
me." These are assurances sufficient to the faithful 
heart that Christ will honor the Sacrament with the 
grace it is intended to convey. 

Such an act, of course, is not necessary on the part of 
Christ, so far as we can see, to enable Him to confer 
the gift of grace, or to know the person on whom to 
confer it. But if it be His purpose thus to confer it, 
His promise limits to this way our hope of attaining it ; 
just as His promise, attached to any other act, would 

a Matt, xxviii. 19. 



244 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

require us to perform it. And there does seem to be 
need of such an act on man's part, if he is to receive 
grace with consent and by seeking ; because the fact of 
seeking consists in the performance of the prescribed 
act with the faith that desires to attain the benefit. The 
grace of the Sacrament is made to depend upon the 
outward sign ; not because the Holy Spirit is under any 
necessity of working by such means in this, any more 
than in any other operation, but because man's pro- 
bation under the Gospel is thus made more accordant 
with his moral nature as a voluntary agent. Unless 
there be an act, the element of human will necessary to 
the restoration of man as a moral being is not present. 
And, unless the act be one determined by Divine ap- 
pointment, it does not declare the submission to God 
of heart, and mind, and will, in which the restoration 
consists. Hence the Sacrament is (as it were) the 
clasped hands of the Saviour and the sinner, joined in 
the covenant of grace. The administrator of the Sacra- 
ment, and the Sacrament itself, 'are ordained for the 
sake of the recipient. They pledge him to God, and 
in return they pledge and convey the grace of Christ 
to him. 

Hence, on the part of the recipient, the act is in 
form a receptive act. The intention being to obtain a 
gift, the form of the transaction is such as to declare its 
purpose. It is therefore the constant witness against any 
notion of merit by reason of good works on the part of 
him who receives it. It testifies that all we can do — all 
works of penitence, of faith, of charity, of self-denial, 
are all too little, and nothing worth, until over and 
above them we have the imparted virtue of the atone- 



Sacraments i?i the System of Grace. 245 

ment of our Lord. The Christian who relies upon his 
baptismal adoption into the family of God can do so 
only because he trusts his Saviour and his Saviour's 
word. Were it an act of great difficulty, or self-denial, 
or great visible effect for good, it might be misappre- 
hended. Were it an act of service instead of recep- 
tion, it might obscure, to a mind not fully enlightened, 
the truth that our salvation is the free gift of God in 
Christ. But, consisting as it does in receiving simple 
elements, administered with a simple rite, it obtains all 
its value from the faith which rests upon the promise of 
Christ. It is purely an act of faith. The more im- 
plicit the faith, the more unreserved the trust, the 
more exalted will be the sense of the transaction ; the 
less faith and trust, the less importance will be attached 
to it, — the infidel will have no motive to seek it. 

Hence the objection which is sometimes urged against 
the doctrine of the Sacraments — that it is unreasonable 
that such momentous consequences should hang upon 
transactions outwardly so insignificant — proves only 
the want of faith of those who make it. If the body 
of Naaman, the leper, could be healed by the Holy 
Ghost after washing in the Jordan at the command of 
a prophet, surely the soul of the sinner will be regener- 
ated by the power of the same Holy Ghost on his 
being washed in the laver of baptism at the command 
of Christ Himself. 

Every aspect of the act marks its fitness for the end 
for which it is ordained. Being receptive and not en- 
ergizing, it shows that saving grace is a received ben- 
efit, a free gift of God ; being a simple act, it declares 
the unreserved bounty of the Giver ; requiring sincere 



246 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

repentance and faith and obedience to the command- 
ments, as conditions precedent to its reception, and 
being a free gift coming after these, it pledges the 
Christian to personal holiness, while yet it testifies that 
all our works fall short in themselves ; and finally, it is 
a continual witness that we are accepted for the sole 
merit of our blessed Redeemer, by whose commission 
it is administered. 

Baptism is the initial Sacrament. It is the Sacra- 
ment of Regeneration, the beginning of the Christian 
life. What goes before is the preparation of the crude 
material of human nature, out of which the Christian 
is to be made. Regeneration is, as has been already 
much insisted on, the communication of life from 
Christ our Lord, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, in 
His sacramental operation, connected through the 
promise of Christ with the administration of the out- 
ward sign by His commissioned minister. 

In its outward form, Baptism a is the application of 

a To clear the language of theology from misapprehension, it 
is to be remarked that the word Sacrament, and the names of the 
two Sacraments, have both a wider and a narrower application. 
In their wider signification they include the " outward sign" and 
the " invisible grace." In their narrower signification they are 
applied to the outward sign alone. In either sense they are said 
to consist of matter and form. The " matter" of baptism in the 
former sense is the invisible grace ; the water, with the words of 
administration, is the " form." In the latter sense the water is 
the " matter," the words are the " form." So, mutatis mutandis, 
of the Holy Communion. This remark is necessary for students 
of the works of the Reformers, since, by inattention to the limita- 
tion or extension of the word, the reader might be led to draw a 
wrong conclusion from their language. Thus, if it be said that 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 247 

water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost. That this ceremony is the means in con- 
nection with which the life-giving grace of Christ is 
imparted ; and that this imparting is the regeneration 
of the Christian, which has been all along assumed, is 
now to be proved. 

The proof consists in sustaining the two following 
propositions : 

1. That regeneration in Baptism is taught in Holy 
Scripture. 

2. The baptismal regeneration taught in Holy Scrip- 
ture is the communication of the life-giving grace of 
Christ. 

1. The word "Regeneration" occurs but in two 
places in the English version of the New Testament, 
in both of which it is the translation of the Greek 
word T.ahyytvsata. The first place is St. Matthew, 
xix. 28: "Ye which have followed me, in the regen- 
eration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of 
His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judg- 
ing the twelve tribes of Israel." The other is Titus, 
iii. 5 : " Not by works of righteousness which we have 
done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the 
washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." In the former passage there is no immediate 

the Sacraments confer grace, the statement is true on condition 
that the word is taken to apply to the whole transaction, visible 
and invisible ; taken in the narrower signification, the statement 
is false. Conversely, when it is said that the Sacraments do not 
confer grace, then the statement is predicated of the outward 
form, in connection with which the grace is conferred by the 
Holy Spirit. 



248 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

reference to the subject under consideration ; but the 
analogy of its use there will explain it in the other 
passage. "The regeneration when the Son of Man 
shall sit in the throne of His glory" has the same 
general signification as "the restitution of all things" 
in Acts, iii. 21 : "Jesus Christ, . . whom the heavens 
must receive, until the time of the restitution of all 
things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all 
His holy prophets, since the world began;" which, 
again, is explained by II. Peter, iii. 13 : "We, accord- 
ing to His promise, look for new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." A parallel 
passage from St. Paul's writings is Rom. viii. 19-23: 
"The earnest expectation of the creature [i.e. the crea- 
tion 3 ] waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. 
. . . Because the creature itself also shall be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious lib- 
erty of the children of God. For we know that the 
whole creation 5 groaneth and travaileth in pain to- 
gether until now. And not only they, but ourselves 
also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we 
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop- 
tion, to wit, the redemption [i.e. by the resurrection] 
of our body." 

From a comparison of these passages, it appears that 
" the regeneration," in this sense, must be taken of the 
more glorious estate to which the universe will be ad- 
vanced at the end of the present dispensation, when 
this world shall be destroyed by fire, and "new 
heavens and a new earth" be given as the habitation 

a rj ktioic. h Traoa tj ktioic 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 249 

of the glorified body of the resurrection. But with 
this wider meaning, I conceive that there is in our 
Saviour's words a special reference to the resurrection 
of the saints. "Ye also (being raised from the dead) 
shall sit upon twelve thrones," etc. For that the res- 
urrection was counted a "new birth" or "new beget- 
ting" is evident from St. Paul's application of Psalm 
ii. 7, to the resurrection of our Saviour, in Acts, xiii. 
33: "The promise which was made unto the fathers, 
God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in 
that He hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is written in 
the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have 
I begotten Thee," — that is, on the day of His resur- 
rection, and therefore by the resurrection. 

Now this reference to the Resurrection will help us 
in our present inquiry so far as this, that as the resur- 
rection of the body is a regeneration, so the "restitu- 
tion" of the heavens and the earth is also a regenera- 
tion ; inasmuch as it is, after its kind, a resurrection of 
heaven and earth, from their death by fire, in which 
they shall put off "the bondage of corruption" under 
which they are held by the sin of man, and "put on 
incorruption." And thus the parallel is perfect with 
baptism, which is represented in Holy Scripture as a 
death and resurrection with Christ. "Know ye not, 
that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ 
were baptized unto His death ? Therefore we are buried 
with Him by baptism into death : that like as Christ was 
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
even so we also should walk in newness of life." a 

a Rom. vi. 3, 4. 



250 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

" Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
risen with Him through the faith of the operation of 
God, who hath raised Him from the dead." a In each 
case the same idea underlies the expression — the idea of 
the infusion of a higher principle of vitality, in the one 
case, into the body, in the other case into the soul. 
The resurrection of the body is a restoration of the 
same body which died ; but not simply a restoration, it 
is also an advancement to a higher state. "It is sown 
a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." We can 
conceive of the resurrection, therefore, only as the gift 
of a higher, spiritual life-principle to the body, assimi- 
lating it to a spiritual nature, b and enabling it to exist 
in incorruptible immortality. In like manner, the spir- 
itual resurrection of the soul in baptism, asserted in the 
passages from Romans and Colossians just quoted, is a 
restoration of the soul from its state of death by the 
infusion of a higher life, — that is, the grace of Christ 
our Lord. Hence -a/uyy^stna, regeneration, may be 
harmoniously applied to the resurrection of the body, 
the renewal of the world, and the Divine operation on 
the soul in baptism. 

And so we find it applied to the baptismal act, in the 
only other place in which it occurs, Titus, iii. 5 : "Not 
by works of righteousness which we have done, but ac- 
cording to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of 
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." The 
" washing of regeneration" is undoubtedly baptism. It 

a Col. ii. 12. 

b Nicholson on the Catechism. " As near unto the nature of a 
Spirit as it is possible for a body." 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 251 

has been shown already, that the two phrases, ' ' the 
washing of regeneration" and "renewing of the Holy 
Ghost," denote two different operations; but even ad- 
mitting them to be the same, the reference to baptism 
is equally clear. The only place besides this in which 
"washing" occurs as the translation of koozpov, is Eph. 
v. 26 : " Christ loved the Church and gave Himself 
for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
washing of water by the Word." The "washing of 
water by the Word" is clearly equivalent to the "wash- 
ing of regeneration," implying the whole transaction of 
baptism, visible and invisible — viewed differently, in- 
deed, in either case ; in the one with a reference to the 
cleansing efficacy of the grace of baptism, in the other 
with a reference to its restoring power. No one will 
deny that baptism is alluded to in the text from Ephe- 
sians ; and there is as little reason to deny it in the 
passage from Titus. The plain, unvarnished sense re- 
quires that it should be thus understood, and no reason- 
ing is needed to enforce the interpretation. It is a 
well-known method of St. Paul to bring in the Sacra- 
ments allusively (^<uvsv-og truverocfftv) in his disquisi- 
tions upon grace. Thus the reference to the outward 
sign is clear in I. Cor. xii. 13 : "For by one Spirit are 
we all baptized into one body ; ' ' nor is it any less clear 
in "the washing [or laver] of regeneration." 

We are willing to admit that the word Tzafoyyevsaca does 
not etymologically signify the raising to a higher state 
than before, by the infusion of a new and higher life ; 
but in both its applications the things themselves con- 
tain this idea of advancement. If, however, a more 
forcible word be demanded, we have avayevyqatq, whose 



252 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

congeners (the noun itself not appearing in the New 
Testament) are applied to describe the baptismal grace, 
with a force inclusive of all that is claimed for it ; and 
that though it is not applied to the Resurrection, thus 
giving a greater prominence to the truth of a new birth 
in the Sacrament. 

It is somewhat unfortunate for the English reader of 
the New Testament that, our language being a com- 
posite formed out of many others, Saxon, Greek, Latin, 
French, etc., the relation of many words to each other, 
clear enough in the original, is thereby obscured in the 
translation. We miss connections of great doctrinal 
importance, because we are not able to express cognate 
Greek words by cognate English words. Thus the ad- 
jective ixhxroq is rendered nearly always "elect," 
while the verb h.lsyw, from which it is derived, is trans- 
lated " choose." So, we have dytot, "saints," tiytoq, 
"holy," ayia^u), "to sanctify," aytcur/xos, " sanctifica- 
tion;" words of the same root in Greek, rendered by 
Latin, French, and Saxon derivatives. In addition to 
this defect, very few English words will give the full 
force of the Greek, and our translators had to choose 
between encumbering their pages with wordy para- 
phrases, or the permission of inadequate and vague ex- 
pressions, by restricting themselves in the number of 
words. It sometimes happens, moreover, that a Greek 
word has the sense of two or more English words, and 
is translated in the one place by the one, and elsewhere 
by the other, so that the mere English reader is unable 
to compare passages, with a certainty of arriving at a 
right conclusion. These three causes operate to make 
the truth of regeneration in baptism less clear in the 
translation than it really is in the original. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 253 

The verb yevvaat, from which dvayevvaet is com- 
pounded, has in earlier Greek the sense to "beget," 
but in later Greek, the two senses " t» beget" and "to 
bring forth;" its passive, consequently, has the two 
senses, " to be begotten" and " to be born." It is trans- 
lated both ways, in relation to the mystery of the new 
birth, in I. John, v. 1 : " Whosoever believeth that 
Jesus is the Christ is born [yeyevvqrai] of God; and 
every one that loveth Him that begat [rov yewr^oyra], 
loveth him also that is begotten [tov yeyevvrjfievov] of 
Him." The last rendering is necessary to preserve the 
inference of the Apostle, which rests on the active 
"begat" and the passive "is begotten." But in 
either place the word contains both senses, and there 
is no exact equivalent for it in our language ; hence our 
translators use that term which expresses the part of the 
meaning most necessary to the context. It is, how- 
ever, very important to remember the whole extent of 
the word, because it bears with great weight on the 
question of the initial communication of life in the 
Sacrament, giving over both these senses to its com- 
pound avayevvaofiai. 

The latter verb occurs (in participial form) only in 
I. Peter, i. 23: "Being born again [avaysyswrj/j.evot'] 3 - 
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
Word b of the Lord, which liveth and abideth forever." 
AvayeyevvTjfievoi is literally, in its full force, to the 
learned ear, "being regenerate;" but our translators 

a avayevvrjaag in v. 3 of this chapter. 

b 7joyog, not prifia. See Lee on Inspiration, p. 132-3, Ameri- 
can edition. 



254 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

rightly judged that the plain, homely Saxon would 
convey more meaning to the mere English reader than 
the foreign polysyllable. The doctrinal equivalent is, 
in Saxon, "being begotten and born again ;" and even 
then the full force of the preposition a»a is not ob- 
tained. In composition it not only implies the return 
signified by "again," but it also retains its own proper 
signification, "up to," "upon," "from above," — the 
compound here being equivalent to yewyth) d>utOe», in 
John, iii. 3. Hence, to translate adequately, we must 
read, "being begotten again from above [and so be- 
gotten to the higher life], not of corruptible seed," etc. 
The above passage does not connect regeneration 
with baptism; but if there be one passage in Scripture 
which does so, that is conclusive for all places where it 
is spoken of without definition, and must be under- 
stood in each. Thus, as we understand d>a in St. 
John's "Which were [new] born, not of blood, nor of 
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God;" a and "Whosoever is [new] born of God doth 
not commit sin," b and "Whosoever believeth that Jesus 
is the Christ is [new] born of God ;" c the thing here 
spoken of being the same new birth which is called by 
St. Peter avayerevvijfievoi ; so, if there be one undoubted 
passage which adds to this notion, the further particu- 
lar, f| udaro$ xat -vzu/mroc, " of water and the Spirit," 
that also enters into the notion of regeneration, and 
must be understood wherever regeneration or the new 
birth of the individual is spoken of, upon the self-evi- 
dent principle that anything, however named, has at 

a John, i. 13. b I. John, iii. 9. c I. John, v. 1. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 255 

all times its essential attributes and parts, and, if it be 
thought of at all, must be thought of as it is. 

The authority of the doctrine of regeneration in 
baptism finally rests on the discourse of our Saviour to 
Nicodemus, in which the required phrase, e£ udaroz xat 
xv£o;j.a.Toq, is added, to complete the notion, by the Son 
of God Himself: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Ex- 
cept a man be born again [yewr/dy avwtfev] he cannot see 
the kingdom of God. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto 
thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit 
\yevv7)(hq eg udaroq /.at Tzveuiiaroq] he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh 
is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Marvel not that I said unto thee ye must be born again' ' 
[ysv. av(o6av']. Here to "be born of water and the 
Spirit" is certainly equivalent to and a clearer explana- 
tion of yewrjOy (-vac) avotOev in the preceding and follow- 
ing verses; and as certainly ysv. aviodev is the same with 
avdyeyevvyjfievot in the passage quoted from St. Peter. 
And since the simple verb and its compounds contain 
the sense of begetting? as well as birth, the regeneration 
of man, in the full force of the Latin term, is here as- 
serted to be wrought in and through baptism. 

The only answer to this on the part of those who con- 
travene the doctrine, is that the word "water" is used 
figuratively, and not materially. But this evasion was 

a The author feels the necessity of insisting upon this truth the 
more strongly from having heard a clergyman of some ability as 
a preacher assert, in a convention, that regeneration in baptism 
was but birth, and that "life" must precede birth, apparently in 
utter ignorance that the Greek verb used is yevvau throughout. 



256 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

met completely by our great Hooker, nearly three hun- 
dred years since, in these memorable words: " I hold 
it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred 
Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, 
the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. 
There is nothing more dangerous than this licentious 
and deluding art which changeth the meaning of words 
as alchemy doth, or would do, the substance of metals, 
making of anything what it listeth, and bringing, in the 
end, all truth to nothing. Or, howsoever such volun- 
tary exercise of wit might be borne with otherwise, yet? 
in places which usually serve as this doth, concerning 
regeneration by water and the Holy Ghost, to be al- 
leged for grounds and principles, less is permitted. . . . 
When the letter of the law hath two things plainly and 
expressly specified, water and the Spirit, — water as a 
duty required on our parts, the Spirit as a gift which 
God bestoweth, — there is danger in presuming so to in- 
terpret it as if the clause that concerned! ourselves were 
more than needeth. We may, by such rare expositions, 
attain, perhaps, in the end, to be thought witty, but 
with ill advice. " a 

Two texts above quoted require additional remark 
to guard against misunderstanding. I. John, iii. 9, and 
v. 1, were produced incidentally to show that the words 
" born" and "born again" were identical in sense in 
this connection, and it was assumed that the "birth" 
there mentioned is the baptismal regeneration. The 
former verse (which reads: "Whosoever is born of 
God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in 

a Hooker, b. V. lix. 2, 4. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 257 

him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God") 
must not be taken either as asserting the indefectibility 
of the baptized, nor as contravening the fact of regen- 
eration in baptized sinners. It is an example of St. 
John's way of looking at the end from the beginning. 
At the last, when all imperfection is done away, it will 
be so ; and in view of that final consummation, regen- 
eration is nothing if it do not attain the resurrection of 
the just. But in respect to this life, it is the mark at 
which the Christian aims, the rule by which he must 
guide himself to keep his regeneration, the definition of 
a new-born man, which he must strive to realize in 
himself, — not the description of him as he actually is; 
for the same St. John says: "If we say we have no 
sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 
The baptized Christian who does not walk by this rule 
will lose the grace of regeneration, if he have possessed 
it ; he who does walk by it, striving against sin, is not 
only born of water, but of the Holy Ghost. It does 
not touch the question when or how the man becomes 
regenerate, which must be answered from our Saviour's 
words to Nicodemus, preserved by St. John himself. 
The other text is : "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is 
the Christ is born of God ;" from which, were it alone, 
it might be inferred that faith was the only necessary 
requisite to regeneration. But no one will deny that 
faith must be joined with repentance; that the faith 
spoken of is a living, working faith, — since St. James 
says, "Faith without works is dead." It is faith mani- 
fest in the Church, faith confessed in the appointed 
manner, and therefore faith which has made the bap- 
tismal confession, and received the gift of baptismal 



258 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

grace. The Apostle who has preserved to us the most 
of our Lord's teaching respecting the grace of the 
Sacraments a is not the one to make it of none effect by 
any "tradition" of his own. 

We conclude, then, that our first assertion, that Re- 
generation in Baptism is taught in Holy Scripture, is 
fully proved : 1, by the passage in St. Paul's Epistle 
to Titus ; 2, by the words of our Lord to Nicodemus ; 
and 3, by the doctrinal harmony of all other texts 
which speak of the new birth. 

Our next proposition is, that the Regeneration as- 
serted to be wrought in Baptism is the communication 
of spiritual life by the grace of Christ our Lord. 

That the grace of the Son is a Divine life given to 
the Christian has been proved in the fourth chapter. 
Conversely, as there is but one imparted life, the Di- 
vine life given to the Christian is the grace of Christ. 
What is now to be proved, therefore, is that the term 
regeneration, though not explicitly denned in Holy 
Scripture, is there intended to mean the gift of the 
grace and life of Christ. 

1. Our first argument is that the word itself, whether 
-ahyy^zma or a'sayi^r^'^, implies the communication of 
life. Regeneration is a second generation ; generation 
is a begetting, and begetting is the communication of 
life. Dead things, things material, things inanimate, 
are not begotten. The father has his right of pater- 
nity, because his son partakes of his life. Our blessed 
Lord is the "only-begotten of the Father," because 
God the Father has given to Him His life. "As the 

a John, iii., vi. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 259 

Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the 
Son, to have life in Himself. " a So, we are sons of God, 
through Christ, because He "hath begotten us again 
[a'yaYz'^r t <jaf\ unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead." b This idea of "beget- 
ting" as well as "birth" is inherent in izafayyeveaia as 
well as oLvayevv^ffK:. The root of the former, yeveaia, is 
from the obsolete yz\>w, "to beget," and yevvyatg is from 
yew aw, which is only a strengthened and later form of 
the same verb ; hence the words are identical in signi- 
fication, meaning "begetting" or "birth," as includ- 
ing begetting. For the work of grace is instantaneous ; 
the end is not separate from the beginning \ there is 
no need to have one word expressive of the beginning 
and another of the end ; the new birth is the new be- 
getting, and the new begetting is the new birth. The 
"new birth," therefore, or regeneration of man by 
grace, is the begetting him to a new life ; it is the com- 
munication of the grace of life from the Divine hu- 
manity of Christ our Lord ; the idea of initial commu- 
nication is inherent in the term; and, since the grace 
of Christ is the only principle of life in the Christian, 
we conclude that regeneration in baptism is the im- 
planting of that grace. 

2. This conclusion is corroborated by the consider- 
ation that the Epistles of the New Testament (except 
the Pastoral ones) are addressed to Churches of bap- 
tized believers, and therefore that the assurances they 
contain of the gift of life in Christ are predicated upon 
the baptism of those to whom those assurances are made. 

a John, v. 26. b I. Peter, i. 3. 



260 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

The Epistles were written to the members of the dif- 
ferent Churches, as baptized. Those Churches were 
societies of converts, who had been gathered together 
into a common brotherhood by the Sacrament of bap- 
tism. That they were initiated into those societies by 
baptism none will deny. Baptism was the act which 
pledged them as disciples and separated them from 
the world. Before baptism they were not members of 
these societies ; after it, they were ; they were made 
members by the Sacrament. Hence, when an Apostle 
wrote to a Church, he wrote to a company of baptized 
people. That was his idea of the Church to which 
he was writing; and therefore he addressed to them 
teachings, exhortations, comfort, warning, assurance, 
promise, as baptized into the Church of Christ. Their 
title to take the contents of the Epistle to themselves 
rested on their baptism. Without that Sacrament, as 
the door of admission into the visible society, no one 
had a title to receive, to hear, much less to appropriate 
the Epistle. It was for the world without, on condi- 
tion of baptismal entrance into the company for which 
it was written, but not otherwise. Let the reader, then, 
refer to the Epistles themselves, or to the quotations 
from them in the third chapter of this book, for the 
direct testimony to the fact that Christians are receivers 
of the life of Christ. Every such text carries with it, 
as an essential part of itself, that it is written for bap- 
tized people, as baptized, — and therefore is implicit 
testimony that Christians receive this divine gift by 
virtue of their baptism. Hence, as in our first argu- 
ment we concluded from the name regeneration to the 
thing named, so we here conclude from the thing given 
in baptism to the name so proper for it. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 261 

3. A third argument may be founded on the baptis- 
mal union of the Redeemer and the members of His 
Church asserted in Holy Scripture. That union con- 
sists in the possession of a common life, derived from 
Him, the Head, to us the members. It consists not 
only in being endued with the grace of His Spirit, but 
also with His grace. The unity of the Church is one- 
ness in Christ, as well as "the unity of the Spirit. " a 
The Church is "the temple of the Holy Ghost," but 
it is "the body of Christ." We are the body, He is 
the Head, the Spirit is the soul of the Church. We are 
1 ' members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, " b 
is the intensive expression of St. Paul. " The Church, 
which is His body, the fulness of Him that nlleth all in 
all. " c "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in 
particular. " d Now this union, so intimate, of the body 
with the head, is declared to be wrought in baptism. 
" For as the body is one, and hath many members, and 
all the members of that one body, being many, are 
one body : so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are 
all baptized into one body." e And that the foundation 
of this figure of the body is the life which the Church 
derives from Christ, the Head, may be inferred most 
clearly from that passage in Ephesians iv., where St. 
Paul exhorts us to "grow up into Him in all things, 
which is the Head, even Christ; from whom," he goes 
on to say, " the whole body fitly joined together and 
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, accord- 
ing to the effectual working in the measure of every part, 

a Eph. iv. 3. b Eph. v. 30. c Eph. i. 23. 

d I. Cor. xii. 27. e I. Cor. xii. 12, 13. 

23 



262 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself 
in love;" and from Colossians, ii. 19: "Holding the 
Head, from which all the body, by joints and bands 
having nourishment ministered, and knit together, in- 
creaseth with the increase of God. ' ' We reason, there- 
fore, that as we are baptized into the body of Christ, 
and as we are said to be His body, because of the life 
derived from Him to us, and as the most proper name 
for the derivation of that life is Regeneration, there- 
fore the word Regeneration is intended in Scripture to 
signify the communication of the life-giving grace of 
Christ to His baptized disciples. 

4. A fourth argument for the same conclusion rests 
on the application of the figure of death and the Resur- 
rection to the baptismal operation, in the well-known 
passages, Romans, vi. 3-1 1, and Colossians, ii. 12: 
"Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized 
into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? 
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into 
death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead 
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should 
walk in newness of life. . . . Christ being raised from 
the dead dieth no more ; death hath no more do- 
minion over Him. For in that He died, He died 
unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth 
unto God. Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead 
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." So, again, in Colossians, "Buried 
with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with 
Him through the faith of the operation of God, who 
hath raised Him from the dead," — a passage which 
has its parallel in Ephesians, ii. 4-6: "God, who is rich 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 263 

in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, 
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us to- 
gether with Christ (by grace are ye saved) ; and hath 
raised us up together, and made us sit together in 
heavenly places, in Christ Jesus." The peculiar lan- 
guage used by St. Paul can only be understood as say- 
ing in sacred rhetoric, that by the infusion of His 
grace, making us one with Him, we are made partners 
of His death and resurrection ; buried with Him, and 
risen with Him, because one with Him ; and one with 
Him because living by His life. And this enables us 
to see why so much stress is laid upon the resurrection 
of our Lord in connection with our spiritual benefit, as 
in that passage of St. Peter before quoted : " Hath be- 
gotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ from the dead." And again, "The 
like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now 
save us ... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." 3 
And so St. Paul : "Who was delivered for our offences, 
and was raised again for our justification." 1 " For at His 
resurrection and exaltation He received the power of 
giving Himself as God and man to His followers, to 
be their life; and since the possession of Him includes 
the application to our needs of His merits and atone- 
ment, we are "saved," we are "justified," we are 
"begotten again" by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
Hence, as before, we conclude from the figure em- 
ployed by the Apostle, that the essential grace of bap- 
tism is the life of Christ, and therefore that the com- 
munication of it is the regeneration attributed to the 
Sacrament. 

a I. Peter, iii. 21. b Rom. iv. 25. 



264 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

With the doctrine thus elicited agree the effects 
attributed to baptism: remission of sins, salvation, 
and the gift of the indwelling Spirit, with His heav- 
enly consolations as the earnest of our heavenly inher- 
itance. For, 

1. Since Christ gave Himself to be our ransom; 
since His name is Jesus, because "He shall save His 
people from their sins," it follows that the bringing 
His people into union with Himself gives them a title 
to the remission of the sins He came to take away. 
His oneness w r ith them in the unity of the body is the 
meritorious cause of their pardon, transfers to them 
the virtue of His atonement, and secures their accept- 
ance of God the Father. Hence St. Peter, preaching 
on the day of Pentecost, said : " Repent and be bap- 
tized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, 
for the remission of sins, and" (he added) "ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And so Ananias 
to St. Paul: "And now why tarriest thou? Arise and 
be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the 
name of the Lord." a So, too, baptism is called "the 
washing of regeneration," and Christ is said to 
"cleanse the Church with the washing of water by the 
Word;" showing that the idea of cleansing from sin 
by the grace applied in the Sacrament is inherent in 
the scriptural conception of the Sacrament. 

2. The baptized are also said to be "saved," or, as 
the Church Catechism expresses it, "brought into a 
state of salvation," because by their union with Christ, 
their membership of His body, their adoption into the 

a Acts, xxii. 16. 



Sacrame?its in the System of Grace. 265 

family of God, and the forgiveness of their sins, they 
are brought into that state in which, if they continue 
therein, they receive now the blessings of God's grace, 
and shall at last be partakers of the state of glory. 
For which reason St. Peter declares, "baptism doth 
also now save us (not the putting away the filth of the 
flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards 
God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." 

3. Finally, the possession of the grace of Christ 
brings with it a larger measure of the grace of the 
Holy Spirit ; and this is specially connected with bap- 
tism in the passage above produced from St. Peter's 
sermon on the day of Pentecost. Nor is this the only 
passage where that connection is implied. In the light 
which is furnished by what has been said, we can cite 
here, as bearing upon this point, such passages as II. 
Cor. i. 21, 22: "Now He which stablisheth us with 
you in Christ, and hath anointed a us, is God; who 
hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit 
in our hearts;" and v. 5 to the same effect, "Now 
He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is 
God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the 
Spirit." And Eph. i. 13: "In whom (Christ) ye 
also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the 
gospel of your salvation : in whom also after that ye 
believed, ye were sealed b with that Holy Spirit of 

a xpcaag, from Xpuu, whence xptorog. The Apostle, by the use of 
this word, intimates the communication of the grace of Christ, as 
is evident by his subsequent mention of the grace of the Holy 
Spirit. 

b I believe the word "sealed" refers to the apostolic rite of 
confirmation, which always follows baptism. 
23* 



266 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until 
the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the 
praise of His glory." What that promised grace of 
the Holy Spirit is, we learn from our Lord Himself: 
"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another 
Comforter, that He may abide with you forever ; even 
the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot receive, be- 
cause it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye 
know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in 
you." a "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give 
unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." b 
And so St. Paul, declaring the comfort of the regen- 
erate: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the 
Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father." "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
spirit, that we are the children of God: and if chil- 
dren, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with 
Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may 
be also glorified together. . . . Ourselves also, which 
have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by 
hope. . . . Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our in- 
firmities : for we know not what we should pray for as 
we ought : but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for 
us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He 
that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of 
the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints 
according to the will of God." d It is evident that this 
grace of the Spirit follows after and is predicated upon 

a John, xiv. 16, 17. c Gal. iv. 6. 

b John, xiv. 27. d Rom. viii. 16-27. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 267 

the baptismal union with the Redeemer, by which the 
Christian is regenerate ; and that this gift is the earnest 
of his inheritance and the seal of his adoption. 

In the chapter upon the grace of the Son, it was said 
that repentance, faith, and regeneration are the three 
elements of the Christian's restoration, corresponding 
to the three faculties of the soul, the heart, the mind, 
and the will. For simplicity of method, these three 
words were made to include the whole work of life. 
Repentance was considered, not simply as the sorrow 
for sin which leads us to forsake it — it was not merely 
the beginning, but it was the whole work of the Chris- 
tian, constantly turning away from sin, and striving 
after good, continually fighting against temptation, and 
endeavoring to attain true holiness. It was defined to 
be the full, entire, and constant allegiance of the heart 
to God ; and therefore it has a place in the regenerate 
life of the Christian, as well as in preparation for it. 
Faith was also defined to be the allegiance of the mind 
to God in Christ, and as such, it also was said to have 
its two stages, the one preceding regeneration, in which 
the Son of God is recognized as the Redeemer ; the 
other, in which the Redeemer is known as our Re- 
deemer, by personal appropriation of His grace, made 
over to us at our regeneration into His body. In like 
manner, Regeneration, in the large meaning required 
by its use to imply the full communication of the grace 
of Christ, was not limited to the baptismal act, but was 
made temporarily to include all the successive opera- 
tions of that grace in the state of the regenerate, car- 
rying forward the initial act of regeneration to the 
consummate fruition of the world to come. Here, 



268 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

however, we have arrived at the point where we can 
limit the word to its proper meaning, the initial com- 
munication of the grace of life, and refer elsewhere 
what relates to growth and continuance. Regeneration 
thus stands as a middle point in the work of restoration, 
separating the faith and repentance which precede from 
the faith and repentance which follow after the admin- 
istration of the Sacrament. Thus we are furnished with 
the proper place in the system, of those other words 
used in the chapter on the grace of the Holy Spirit, 
conversion and sanctification. Conversion is the oper- 
ation of grace, producing (the will of man concurring) 
the faith and repentance that precede regeneration ; 
sanctification is the operation of grace which develops 
faith and repentance into the holy walk of the regen- 
erate. The three steps of Christian progress are, con- 
version, regeneration, and renewal or sanctification. 
The Christian is first converted, then regenerated, then 
renewed or sanctified. 

This statement of the progress of the work of grace 
in the soul, however, relates only to those who are 
baptized at mature age and on their own application. 
Of such persons, the Church is bound to require, before 
the Sacrament is administered, the profession of that 
faith, and repentance, and obedience which is the 
result of conversion. Upon the reality of the fact 
represented by the profession depends the fact of re- 
generation in the Sacrament ; since unbelief, and sin 
unrepented of, are a bar to the action of regenerating 
grace. And it is material to observe that the reality of 
conversion is evidenced by the result, and not by any 
real or supposed consciousness of , the mode in which 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 269 

that result is attained by the grace of the Holy Spirit. 
The modes are infinite in variety — various as the re- 
sources of the Spirit and the needs of men ; but the 
result is one — living faith and true repentance. This 
work, however, can be wrought only in those who have 
arrived at the age of moral consciousness. In all that 
has been written hitherto in these pages, the case of the 
adult has been considered throughout ; for, as man fell 
in his maturity, the parallel was best drawn out between 
the fall and the restoration, by considering him as ma- 
ture when he comes to his regeneration. 

But it is not to be overlooked that the great majority 
of those who profess and call themselves Christians are 
baptized in infancy, before the age of moral conscious- 
ness is reached, and therefore when any conscious con- 
version, any actual repentance and faith is impossible. 
The question thence arises, Is the baptism of infants 
valid and operative to their regeneration ? or is volun- 
tary acceptance of the initial Sacrament such an abso- 
lute law that an advanced age and a conscious conver- 
sion are its universal and necessary antecedents ? 

It is not our purpose, for we have not the space, to go 
over the whole anabaptist controversy; but simply to 
indicate those considerations which flow from and bear 
upon the views here presented. The whole matter re- 
solves itself into this : Regeneration being a free gift 
of God to man, obtained by no merit of ours, but 
gratuitously bestowed through the merits and in the 
body of Christ, conversion, as a condition precedent 
to regeneration in the adult, operates not to give a 
claim, but to remove hindrances set in the way of the 
saving grace of the Sacrament. It removes disabilities 



270 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

from the recipient. Actual sin and unbelief, persisted 
in, freeze the heart against the precious seed of the Di- 
vine life j repentance and faith open the heart to its re- 
ception. They follow from the fact that actual sin has 
been committed, and as antecedents of regeneration 
they are the removal of a bar. As far as they can, they 
undo the evil which the preceding years of the adult's 
life have been heaping up ; they seek to drive out the 
evil, and so make room for the good. Their whole re- 
lation to regeneration as antecedent conditions, arises 
out of precedent actual sin. Now it is admitted, in the 
case of infants, that, prior to the age of moral con- 
sciousness, actual repentance and faith are impossible ; 
but, on the other hand, actual sin is equally impossible. 
Original sin, indeed, is inherent, and this constitutes 
the need of regeneration ; but original sin is no bar to 
the operation of the Sacrament, or no one could be 
made regenerate. Actual sin unrepented of, actual un- 
belief is the only bar. Hence, from what appears, there 
is no bar to the gift of regeneration to infants in the 
Sacrament of baptism. 

Nor is there any reason against it in the statement 
that Sacraments are of voluntary reception. For, 
although infants, because of their tender age, are inca- 
pable of any voluntary activity, and therefore neither 
of actual sin nor of conscious repentance, yet they may, 
by the mercy of God, be made recipients of the grace 
anticipatively and preventively, subject to a subsequent 
ratification when they arrive at the age of moral respon- 
sibility. The grace is thus given to them, that it may, 
together with the influences of the Holy Spirit and the 
teachings of the Church, be present in their hearts at 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 271 

the very first opening of the moral consciousness ; and 
thus the question of voluntary ratification of the cove- 
nant is presented in a more forcible way than if they 
were left to grow up outside the pale of the Church. 
For now, the question put to the person is not simply 
" Do you accept a grace which you have not had hith- 
erto?" but "Do you ratify, or do you henceforth 
reject the covenant of grace in which you have hereto- 
fore been living?" Hence, for the express purpose of 
this voluntary ratification, the rite of confirmation was 
established by Apostolic authority, — a rite which ob- 
tains its significance among us from its position as the 
complement of infant baptism, the middle point between 
an involuntary baptism, and a voluntary communion. 
For this reason, pledges are put upon parents and 
sponsors on the child's behalf, bearing witness to the 
anticipative character of the Sacrament considered as 
a covenant between God and man, in which God 
grants the grace before He requires the other part, be- 
cause of incapacity which does not involve actual sin j — 
holding man to his side of the covenant as soon as he 
is able to perform it, and binding, in the mean time, 
those who have the natural care of children to teach 
them their obligations within the covenant, that when 
the time arrives for them to ratify it in their own per- 
sons, by coming to confirmation, they may do so, or 
decline to do so, with a will fully advised of the tre- 
mendous consequences which hang upon their decision. 
Thus, while the voluntary character of the Christian 
position in the Church is preserved, the Sacrament 
of initiation and regeneration is granted an anticipa- 
tive force and efficacy; nor is it to be doubted that 



272 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

those who are rightly baptized in infancy are truly re- 
generate. 

If it be objected to this that infant incapacity for 
faith, repentance, and voluntary action constitutes an 
incapacity for receiving the grace of the Sacrament, 
and therefore for receiving the outward sign, it is re- 
plied that, in all consistency, such an objection must 
be carried further ; it is equally an objection against the 
possibility of the final salvation of deceased infants by 
the merits of Christ. For infants, lying under the curse 
of original sin, must, if saved at all, be saved by the 
application of the grace of Christ. To assert their in- 
capacity of receiving that grace, therefore, is to assert 
the impossibility of their salvation. But if they can 
receive it for salvation, they can receive it in that way 
in which it is appointed to be given, by sacramental 
communication. The grim and horrible doctrine will 
hardly be insisted upon, in these days, that infants 
dying, even unbaptized, will be found among the lost. 
But if they are saved by the merits of Christ applied 
in an extraordinary way, surely the argument is all the 
stronger that those merits and the grace of Christ may 
be applied, to them in the ordinary way, by the use of 
the appointed means. For the objection to the use of 
the means rests upon the supposed impossibility of the 
infant's receiving the gift it conveys; and therefore, 
when it is shown that they may receive the grace for 
salvation, the objection falls to the ground, and there 
is every reason to conclude that they are proper sub- 
jects for the means by which that grace is communi- 
cated. 

Hence, there is no limitation of age in our Saviour's 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 273 

commission to baptize: " Go ye and make disciples of 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The com- 
mand is to baptize all nations; and it is rightly argued 
that nations are composed of men, women, and chil- 
dren, that the command is universal in extent, and 
therefore that children are subjects for baptism as well 
as grown-up people. It is incumbent upon those who 
object to infant baptism to show some positive pro- 
hibition or limitation by which children are excluded 
from the Sacrament, and this they can never do. On 
the contrary, every inference is against such a suppo- 
sition. In the first place, the Christian was grafted 
upon the Jewish Church, in which the reception of in- 
fants by circumcision was a practice inwoven into all 
the life and thought of the Jew by express Divine 
command, so that he could not conceive of a religious 
privilege of which his child was not the heir as truly as 
himself. We hear a question respecting the baptism of 
the heathen Cornelius ; but one never could be raised 
respecting the eligibility of a Jewish child to all the 
privileges conferred in that Sacrament, when every 
Hebrew possessed his heritage of "the adoption, and 
the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the 
law, and the service of God, and the promises" solely 
by the title of his infant circumcision. Hence St. 
Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, declares : 
" The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to 
all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God 
shall call." a Moreover, when we are told that Lydia 

a Acts, ii. 39. 
24 



274 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

" was baptized and her household," that the jailer at 
Philippi "was baptized, he and all his, straightway," and 
that St. Paul "baptized the household of Stephanas," 
it requires something more than mere special pleading 
to make us believe that no children of tender age were 
members of the many "households" baptized by the 
Apostles. Besides, there are many precepts in the 
Epistles addressed to children as such, — to children of 
tender age, — commands to implicit obedience and the 
like, which are based on their membership in the 
Church, — that is, on their baptism. And though this 
argument admits that such children were so far ad- 
vanced that they could understand and receive these 
precepts ; yet it implies that they had been or might 
have been baptized previously to that development of 
the understanding. For the command of implicit 
obedience to parents is not only based upon imma- 
turity, but it is the very first moral commandment 
under which children come ; it enters their under- 
standings at the very budding and opening of that 
faculty ; and therefore implies a baptism preceding all 
conscious responsibility, as the ground of children's 
being in the Church to be addressed by the Apostle. 

In view of these facts, it can admit of no doubt on 
the part of those who truly believe the promises of our 
Lord and the teachings of Holy Scripture, that persons 
baptized in infancy, as well as others who receive the 
Sacrament without bar to its efficacy, are regenerate; 
and it is our duty as believers not to seek to invalidate 
this conclusion by irrelevant considerations, but rever- 
ently to study, with the effort to remedy, those facts 
which obscure the truth in actual experience. It is 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 275 

matter of deep regret to the truly Christian heart, that 
the lives of some Christians baptized in infancy do not 
correspond to the calling of the regenerate ; that, in 
cases altogether too numerous, the falling short, it is to 
be feared, continues to the end of life ; that, in other 
cases, the soul does not develop a religious life until a 
comparatively late period. On the other hand, how- 
ever, the cases are neither few nor hard to discover in 
which the Christian life goes on from the beginning 
to its full development, in a continuous course of pro- 
gressive sanctification. The question is, Can the facts 
of adverse experience be harmonized with the doctrine 
of baptismal regeneration as taught in Holy Scripture 
and held by the Church ? It is certainly our duty, if 
they can, to seek for, until we discover, the principle 
on which they are accounted for. 

1. That very many persons do go on under the full 
Gospel system to lead the life of the regenerate from 
the very first opening of consciousness, being trained 
from their earliest infancy, by the care of pious parents, 
by the ministrations of the Church, by the leading of 
the Holy Spirit, to obey the teachings of the Divine 
word, — the inner life of imparted grace thus receiving 
its proper culture and all the conditions of its growth 
— is a happy fact, which proves at once the adaptation 
of the Divine system to the needs of men, and its effi- 
cacy, when operative in all its parts, to work the com- 
plete restoration of fallen humanity. These examples 
of a whole life spent in the service of God convert 
faith in the Divine word into actual experience of the 
truth there set forth. We see and know those who 
thus have calmly and consistently advanced in a true 



276 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Christian course, — having their faults, and failings, and 
lapses, it is true, but on the whole making constant 
progress, bringing forth in fair abundance the fruits of 
the Spirit, and giving, in all their lives, the demon- 
strative example of true piety. Of the baptismal re- 
generation of such persons there can be no question. 
And, building upon this foundation, the Divine Spirit 
works a constant, gradual sanctification, transmuting 
the earthly nature into the likeness of the heavenly seed, 
and enabling that seed of life to assimilate to itself, by 
gradual growth, all the powers and faculties. In this 
way evil passions and tendencies are nipped in the bud 
as fast as they appear; and thus conversion (which, 
whether as a sudden crisis or a gradual change, is the 
condition precedent to the baptismal regeneration of 
the adult) is entirely absorbed in the process of sancti- 
fication. The change which takes place is simply the 
passage from infantile unconsciousness to mature con- 
sciousness, the opening of the sense of responsibility 
and position, and the apprehension of the fact that the 
young Christian is and has been a child of God. This 
is the fact which is represented by confirmation at the 
proper age, when the child of God takes upon himself 
publicly the obligations of which he has become con- 
scious, and claims for himself the covenant with God, 
the benefits of which he has received in anticipation of 
this his ratification. 

2. Others, however, are endowed with regeneration 
in infant baptism who do not thus use the gift, whose 
religious life does not proceed forward thus steadily 
and continuously. A long time elapses before they 
show any appreciable signs of the influence of Divine 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 277 

grace, and it is not, perhaps, until late in life that they 
are brought to live up to their Christian position. In 
some cases they never realize this position. Members 
of Christ, they are diseased ; children of God, they 
are disobedient ; inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, 
they are spendthrift of their heavenly inheritance. The 
natural heart holds sway over the conduct, and the 
outward life is a life of sin. This state continues for a 
longer or a shorter period, — ten, twenty, thirty years 
from the beginning of consciousness; at length they 
are converted to the obedience of faith, and finally 
saved, or, fearful to think, they are cut off in their 
sins. What is the cas^e with these? Have they ever 
been really regenerate or not ? 

Now, having been once baptized, and baptism being 
the only appointed means of obtaining the gift of re- 
generation, the fact of their having been baptized pre- 
cludes the possibility of their ever being regenerate, if 
they be not so at their baptism. For there is but "one 
baptism. " a Nor, however they may have fallen short, 
if brought to obedience at last, can we think that re- 
generating grace has been lost and restored in the in- 
tervening time. "For it is impossible for those who 
were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heav- 
enly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
and have tasted the good word of God, and the 
powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, 
to renew them again unto repentance." Hence we 
must understand that other causes are at work which 
prevent the assimilation of the Divine life, the seed of 

a Eph. iv. 5. 

24* 



278 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

grace remaining, as it were, quiescent, and the mercy 
of God continuing it in the soul, until the result is at 
length attained, or until the day of grace is past alto- 
gether. 

The parable of the barren fig-tree declares to us the 
dealings of Divine grace with these persons. "A cer- 
tain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard : and he 
came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then 
said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these 
three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and 
find none : cut it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ? 
And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone 
this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it ; and 
if it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after that thou 
shalt cut it down." The meaning of this parable is 
plain. The fig-tree is " planted in the vineyard ;" the 
fruitless man is a member of the Church. He has life 
in him; it is not yet taken away; but he bears no 
fruit. The Divine life is inoperative, and meanwhile 
the natural life bears its fruit of sin (a fact for which, 
from the nature of the case, there is no parallel in the 
figure). The owner of the vineyard is God the Father ; 
the vine-dresser is God the Son, whose priestly inter- 
cession avails to continue the day of probation, and 
to defer the final excision. The appliances of hus- 
bandry are the external influences and internal grace of 
the Holy Spirit and the Church, stimulating the sacra- 
mental life into activity, even after the lapse of a long 
time of barrenness; while the implied attributing of 
moral unfitness to the unfruitful tree points to the true 
source of failure in the perverseness of the human will. 

We learn, therefore, that the grace of regeneration 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 279 

may remain for a longer or a shorter time, like the seed 
in frozen ground, quiescent. And yet by the mercy of 
God, and His long-suffering, it is continued to the in- 
dividual, and permitted to retain its vitality. So long 
as it thus remains he is a member of the Church, capa- 
ble, if he will, of repentance and conversion and sanc- 
tification. But in the mean time, as has been said, the 
natural life brings forth its fruit of sin, and the fearful 
spectacle is presented of members of Christ, who are 
actually living the life of the world, engaged in the ser- 
vice of the devil. In the quiescence of the Divine life, 
rank weeds of a worldly growth fill the whole field of 
the heart, and require perhaps a bitter experience of 
severe culture to uproot them, and bring the will into 
obedience to the holy impulses of the true seed of the 
word. 

The first principle which accounts for the actual life 
of persons regenerate in infancy is the truth heretofore 
insisted on, of the dependence of regenerating grace 
upon the other parts of the Divine system for growth 
and development. A seed planted within, it requires, 
besides its own inward vitality, the outward conditions 
of air, heat, light, moisture, adaptability of soil. It re- 
quires the teachings of Holy Scripture, the ministra- 
tions of the Church, the training in the law of God, as 
well as the grace of the Holy Spirit ; it requires obe- 
dience of the will to these influences to bring forth 
fruit. By this consideration the whole practical diffi- 
culty of believing the truth in the face of apparent ex- 
perience is met. For in how many cases is it matter of 
experience that the baptized child is left to itself with- 
out careful training and subjection to religious instruc- 



280 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

tion by the negligence of parents and sponsors, exposed 
to the bad influence of improper company, — the heav- 
enly life thus being cut off from its proper sources of 
nourishment, and the opposite tendencies of the fallen 
nature flourishing in full vigor ! God has organized His 
Church for a definite work in bringing forward the in- 
dividual member on his Christian course. On the 
principles laid down in the last chapter, He has assigned 
it a place in the complete system of His economy 
among all the influences which bear upon the Christian 
life, and subordinate to this place, He has assigned a 
place to every member of the Church, an influence of 
each on all, telling definitely on the result. Parents, 
sponsors, teachers, associates, as well as clergy, have a 
part in this influence, the greater while the subject of 
it is immature; what wonder, then, if these rest in the 
simple baptism and neglect the baptismal training, that 
the grace of regeneration is dwarfed and choked, and 
the heart is overgrown with the thorns, weeds, and 
nettles of the world, the flesh, and the devil ? Add to 
this, that the total effect of all the influences, internal 
and external, of Divine grace, is to raise the will of 
man to a condition of freedom, not to coerce him 
against himself to right ; and therefore that it is left in 
the power of every regenerate Christian, whether bap- 
tized in infancy or at adult age, to reject the grace of 
God and to neglect the duties of his Christian posi- 
tion ; — and add further, that amid the diverse charac- 
teristics, and peculiar tempers, and various temptations, 
and the hidden nature of much of the inner spiritual 
experience of men, a correct judgment of the actual 
standing of the Christian is not always attainable ; and 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 281 

it will be seen that the apparent want of fruit on the 
part of those persons now under consideration is fully 
accounted for without the sweeping assertion that they 
were never regenerate. 

It is a part of the meaning of that profound illustra- 
tion of our Saviour's, of the inscrutable nature and in- 
finite variety of the Holy Spirit's operations, "The wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and 
whither it goeth," that the Spirit meets such cases of 
post-baptismal delinquency by special providences of 
grace. He strives with them in numberless ways ; He 
brings them, sooner or later, if they will follow Him, 
by a path they have not known, to a realization of 
Christian privileges and Christian responsibilities. It 
is in vain, as has been said, to attempt an enumeration 
or classification of the experiences by which men are 
thus brought to realize and live up to their position. 
Suffice it that, whether the way be smooth or rough, 
the experience calm and gradual, or violent and sud- 
den, the result is a conversion subsequent to regenera- 
tion, similar to that which precedes it in persons who 
are not baptized until adult years ; the effect of which 
is to call forth the baptismal life, hitherto quiescent, 
into a holy activity, by which the outward conduct is 
controlled and moulded to the will of God, and the 
soul made capable of progressive sanctification. 

But if this be not the case — if the grace of regenera- 
tion, whether imparted in infancy, or at a later period, 
do not, under the influences of the Spirit and the 
Church, germinate and fructify ; if, by a perverse will, 
all these influences are resisted to the end, their final 



282 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

excision takes place, the grace of regeneration is with- 
drawn, and the reprobate Christian becomes, in the 
fearful figure of St. Jude, " a tree whose fruit withereth, 
without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots." 
"If a man abide not in me," says our Saviour, "he is 
cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather 
them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." 
In view of these considerations, we conclude that 
baptized children are regenerate ; since it is easier to 
believe that man loses his privilege by sin than that 
the Sacrament of Christ should fail. 

" The grace which we have by the Holy Eucharist," 
says Hooker in the beginning of his thoughtful and 
profound disquisitions upon that blessed Sacrament, 
"doth not begin, but continue life. No man, there- 
fore, receiveth this Sacrament before baptism, because 
no dead thing is capable of nourishment. That which 
groweth, must of necessity first live. If our bodies did 
not daily waste, food to restore them were a thing su- 
perfluous. And it may be that the grace of baptism 
would serve to eternal life were it not that the state of 
our spiritual being is daily so much hindered and im- 
paired after baptism. In that life, therefore, where 
neither body nor soul can decay, our souls shall as little 
require the Sacrament as our bodies corporal nourish- 
ment ; but as long as the days of our warfare last, 
during the time that we are both subject to diminution 
and capable of augmentation in grace, the words of our 
Lord and Saviour Christ will remain forcible, 'Except 
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His 
blood, ye have no life in you.' " 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 283 

In this paragraph the place of the Holy Communion 
as a means of grace is stated with a clearness and a 
fulness which could not be excelled were it expanded 
into a volume. The Sacrament is ordained for our 
present life of imperfection and warfare. It is supple- 
mentary to Baptism, because the grace of Baptism is 
subject to loss from our lapses and sins. It was given 
for the purpose of supplying the waste of the spiritual 
life, and of carrying it forward to its full growth. It 
has, besides, other uses, as an act of worship — the 
highest which the Church on earth can offer to the 
Father; being (as the name "Eucharist" implies) a 
sacrifice of thanksgiving for the one great Atonement, 
and being also a memorial for the confirmation of faith 
in our Lord Jesus Christ, "until He come." But as 
this is not intended to be a complete treatise upon the 
Holy Eucharist, it is sufficient now to consider it under 
the view presented in the passage quoted from the 
judicious divine, who never more merited the title than 
when he wrote that part of the fifth book which treats 
of this Sacrament. 

Now, as we have proved baptism to have relation to 
the grace of the Son, and as the Holy Eucharist has re- 
lation to the same still more clearly, it being, according 
to St. Paul's phrase, "the communion of the body," 
" the communion of the blood of Christ," it is neces- 
sary first to understand how the Scripture distinguishes 
the grace of the latter Sacrament from the grace of the 
former. 

Baptism is the Sacrament of the Christian's initiation 
into life ; hence the grace of baptism is called "life" 
and "regeneration," as well as a "washing" and 



284 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

"cleansing." The Holy Communion is the Sacra- 
ment of continuance ; and for that reason the grace is 
represented under the figure of food, as " the eating the 
body and blood of Christ," — food being the natural 
means of nourishment, continuance, and growth. The 
grace I conceive to be the same in either Sacrament ; 
only that the one Sacrament is appointed by our Sa- 
viour to be the means of initial communication, and 
the other of constant addition, in such manner that the 
partaking of communion necessarily presupposes ante- 
cedent baptism. 

What is to be understood of the grace in itself as 
signified by the name " the body and blood of Christ" 
it is not necessary to speculate. The whole invisible part 
of the Sacrament, on its Divine side, is a transcendent 
mystery, which cannot be reduced to the conceptions 
of the mere understanding. The truth is revealed to 
us under the figure of "body and blood;" but at 
the same time we are informed that these words are 
not to be carnally understood : "It is the spirit that 
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words 
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are 
life." That Christ communicates Himself by means of 
the Sacrament, as He does in Baptism, by the opera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, with saving efficacy to those 
who receive Him in repentance, and faith, and charity, 
is all that we know, or can know. 

The various theories which have been framed in the 
attempt to render conceivable the ma finer how this 
communication is made are equally destitute of au- 
thority, and lead to dangerous results. There is no 
scriptural ground, and no ground in human reason for 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 285 

either the Romish transubstantiation a or the Lutheran 
consubstantiation ; the former of which, as is well 
known, supposes the communication of Christ to the re- 
ceiver to be made by the miraculous withdrawal of the 
"substance" of the bread and wine, and the substitu- 
tion therefor of the "substance" of Christ's body and 
blood ; the latter being divested of its " sensible acci- 
dents, ' ' and those of the bread and wine remaining as 
if the substance of bread and wine were present. Con- 
substantiation is a modification of this doctrine to the 
effect that the "substance" of the bread and wine 
remain, and the "substance" of Christ's body and 
blood is mingled with it, within the local limits of the 
elements. Nor is there any scriptural evidence, or 
evidence of any other character beyond the mere inge- 
nuity of theorizing, for the other hypothesis, known to 
theologians as ' ' impanation, ' ' which supposes that 
Christ assumes to Himself the bread and wine to be 
parts of His body and blood, so that receiving them 
we receive Him. These all are but theories, destitute 
of any ground, and to be shunned by humble, thought- 
ful Christians. 



a It would be interesting to count up how many different shades 
of meaning are comprehended in this word as it is understood by 
the individual members of the Church of Rome — beginning with 
the gross materialism of the Irish laborer, and going upward to 
the refined and philosophic realism of such minds as that of John 
Henry Newman. It raises a shrewd surmise that the Church of 
Rome favors multitudes of opinions, provided the dry word is re- 
tained, in order that she may affirm any for purposes of persecu- 
tion, and deny any for purposes of defence. 

2 5 



286 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

But while theories of the manner how are thus 
doubtful, it is not at all doubtful, but most certain, that 
Christ does communicate Himself by means of the Sac- 
rament. And since this communication is a spiritual 
act, for which there can exist in human language no 
name, except such as is transferred from matters per- 
taining to this life, it is named an eating and drinking 
of the body and blood of Christ, — the mode of speech 
being taken from the means by which Christ has ap- 
pointed that the grace shall be received. Thus far we 
are safe in our understanding of Holy Scripture, which 
uses singular caution in speaking but very few times of 
this great mystery. For when our blessed Saviour says : 
" Take, eat, this is my body;" " Drink ye all of this, 
this is my blood," His meaning is explained by St. 
Paul: "The bread which we break, is it not the com- 
munion [i.e. the partaking, the means by which we 
partake] of the body of Christ?" "The cup which we 
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ?" 
— thus showing that when the bread is called by our 
Saviour His body, it is called so in the same way in 
which the spiritual act is called an eating — the visible 
part of the Sacrament taking a title from the invisible 
part, and the invisible act being named from the 
visible. 

It has been much disputed whether the sixth chapter 
of St. John's Gospel refers to the Sacrament or not. 
That chapter contains our Lord's discourse in the syna- 
gogue at Capernaum on the day after He had fed the five 
thousand with the five loaves and two fishes, one year 
before the formal institution of the Lord's Supper. In 
this discourse our Lord holds the following language, 



Sacraments i?i the System of Grace. 287 

rising, by successive assertions, higher and higher in 
mystery, until He tries to the utmost the faith of those 
who hear : ' ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave 
you not that bread from heaven ; but my Father giveth 
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of 
God is He which cometh down from heaven, and 
giveth life unto the world." u Iam the bread of life: 
he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that 
believeth on me shall never thirst." " I am that bread 
of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, 
and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down 
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. 
I am the living bread which came down from heaven : 
if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : and 
the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give 
for the life of the world." " Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and 
drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth 
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and 
I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is 
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, 
and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, 
and I live by the Father : so he that eateth me, even 
he shall live by me. This is that bread which came 
down from heaven : not as your fathers did eat manna, 
and are dead : he that eateth of this bread shall live 
forever. ' ' 

The Romish divines argue that these declarations 
refer to the Sacrament: and thence that the eating the 
wafer and drinking of the cup are the eating and drink- 
ing the flesh and the blood of Christ; and thence, 



288 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

again, that the bread and the wine are transubstantiated 
into the body and the blood of Christ. Some Protest- 
ant writers, on the other hand, deny that they refer to 
the Sacrament at all, and hold that the exercising faith 
in Christ, at any and all times, is the eating and 
drinking of this chapter. The unwary theological 
student may be misled, if he rely simply upon de- 
tached quotations, respecting the position of the best 
divines of the Church of England. For there is a 
third and middle ground, which shuns the error of 
both extremes, and upon which the writers of greatest 
authority stand. The Roman Church misleads by the 
ambiguity of the word Sacrament. We might assent 
to the statement that the chapter refers to the Sacra- 
ment, if the word be taken in its widest sense, includ- 
ing the invisible as well as the visible part ; but, having 
beguiled us into this admission, Rome immediately 
restricts the word to the narrower sense of the visible 
sign alone ; and thence argues that the visible sign is 
the thing signified — thereby "overthrowing the nature 
of a Sacrament, and giving occasion to many supersti- 
tions.'^ To obviate this confusion of unwary minds, 
it is to be understood and remembered, that the decla- 
rations in question did not, at the time they were 
uttered, refer indeed to the Sacrament, because that 
was not yet instituted ; but they referral to that invisible 
grace and communication of Himself, which our Lord 
i?itended to bestotv by means of the Holy Communion, 
having the design to institute the Sacrament at the proper 
time. They referred not to the sign, but to the thing 

■ Article XXVIII. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 289 

signified by it — to grace which was not then, but which 
was afterwards connected with the sign, and which 
therefore is received (not ordinarily by faith at all times, 
but) by faith determined to that special act of obedience 
which our Lord imposed by the command, "Do this 
in remembrance of me." 

And in proof of this we need only to consider 
together the two facts : that the Holy Communion was 
not yet instituted when our Lord spoke these words ; 
and that, on . the other hand, when St. John recorded 
them, the Eucharist had been established, and of con- 
stant weekly 1 celebration in the Christian assemblies for 
nearly seventy years. From the first fact it is to be in- 
ferred that our Lord was not then speaking of the Eu- 
charist, as such, but of the invisible grace of commu- 
nion with Himself; and this is further corroborated by 
His express disclaimer of a carnal eating of His flesh 
and blood, such as would necessarily follow from the 
Romish hypothesis of transubstantiation : "It is the 
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing : the 
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they 
are life. ' ' But from the other fact we are obliged to 
infer that though the body and blood of Christ are not 
themselves carnally eaten, yet they are spiritually re- 
ceived by means of, and in connection with, the carnal 
eating of the bread and wine. It was not for nothing 
that the record of this conversation was withheld by 
Divine Inspiration from the earlier Gospels, and so re- 

a See Freeman, "Principles of Divine Service," for the proof 
that the Eucharist was of weekly and not daily celebration in the 
Primitive Church. 

25* 



290 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

served until the constant celebration of the Eucharist 
had moulded the whole Christian thought to the full 
faith in its mysteries. a The men who had for seventy 
years (like the saintly Polycarp) been weekly recipients 
of the Sacrament, and who had at every celebration 
heard the words of institution repeated, could not help 
but understand St. John, when they read this chapter, 
to refer to the spiritual grace of the Sacrament. 
' ' Here, ' ' they would say, ' ' is the requirement, ' Except 
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, 
ye have no life in you. ' By what means can we eat 
and drink, and so have life? Surely, this sacramental 
participation of the bread and wine is the means ap- 
pointed by which we can fulfil the requirement. In 
this place, He tells us of a benefit ; in the other place, 
of the means by which that benefit is secured." 
Trained as they had been by constant participation, 
according to the established custom of the early Church, 
such would have been their instinctive reasoning, lead- 
ing them to connect the sixth chapter of St. John with 
the Sacrament. And this, we are compelled to believe, 
was St. John's understanding of the import of the 
chapter. Both writer and reader, and (with all rever- 
ence we may add) the Inspiring Spirit also, agreed in 
this connection ; otherwise in St. John's Gospel, the 
loftiest of all the inspired writings, no allusion is made 
to this central act of Christian worship and means of 
Christian grace. On what grounds can we account for 
the absence of all direct mention of the institution of 



a St. John's Gospel is admitted to have been written near the 
close of the first century. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 291 

the Lord's Supper from the Gospel of "the disciple 
whom Jesus loved," except this, that the Apostle, know- 
ing when and to whom he is writing, considers it to be 
sufficiently alluded to in the record of the discourse 
which declares so fully the nature and the necessity of 
its grace ? 

The sixth chapter of St. John, then, with the Evan- 
gelical accounts of the Institution, and St. Paul's ac- 
count of the same, and exhortations founded thereupon 
in the Epistles to the Corinthians, together with a 
single sentence in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "We 
have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which 
serve the tabernacle," compose the sacred literature 
treating directly of this Sacrament. From it we learn, 
as has been said, that Christ does communicate Him- 
self in a way transcending human understanding to the 
members of His Church. The gift is a spiritual gift, 
the food js living food. " The words that I speak unto 
you, they are spirit and they are life." It is called 
" His body and His blood." It is therefore a commu- 
nication of Himself as one who has been dead. "I 
am He that liveth, and was dead ; and behold I am 
alive for evermore. ' ' He communicates Himself also, 
specially as regards His humanity, to which His body 
and blood belong. These are necessary inferences 
from the Scripture statements under consideration. 
Further than this, our thought upon the mystery is 
negative ; we may be able to define in what it does not 
consist, as we can say that the infinite is not finite ; but 
we are, with the light afforded in this present life, 
unable to grasp it in its positive being. 

It is more profitable to inquire what are the effects or 



292 Threefold Graee of the Holy Trinity. 

benefits of the communication of the body and blood 
of Christ. From the above analysis of the ideas cer- 
tainly contained in the Scripture language, we may 
safely assert that the effect of Christ's communication 
of Himself to the faithful recipients of His Holy Supper 
is the transfer to them of all His communicable attri- 
butes required by their necessities, — of the virtue of 
His life, and death, and resurrection, and immortality 
in the body. These consist in three things : first, the 
saving and expiatory virtue before the Father of the 
acts He performed in the body — of His meritorious 
life and death as an atonement for our sins ; secondly, 
the spiritual powers of His exalted nature, as a risen 
and living and spiritual perfect nature, so far as they 
are needed to meet the necessities of our present exist- 
ence ; and thirdly, the seed of our future resurrection 
and immortality, which we derive from Him, and His 
indwelling in us. 

These effects can be made out directly from Scrip- 
ture. 1. The phrase " His body and blood," symbol- 
ized separately, the one by the bread and the other by 
the wine, together with St. Paul's teaching, "As often 
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the 
Lord's death till He come," connects the reception of 
the Sacrament with the death of Christ, at which His 
. body and blood were separated, as they cannot be in a 
living person. Hence He communicates Himself, as 
bearing with Him the attributes of His death, and if so, 
especially that attribute of vicariousness which was the 
very cause and reason of His death ; and therefore it 
follows that He gives the virtue of His death and all 
His atoning acts as an effect of participation in Him- 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 293 

self by means of the Sacrament. 2. The communica- 
tion of spiritual life and power is contained in the decla- 
ration : "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live 
by the Father : so he that eateth me, even he shall live 
by me." a 3. And so is the power of the Resurrection 
in the following : ' ' Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh 
my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at 
the last day." b 

Now all these gifts are, in a certain sense, initially 
bestowed in baptism ; but they are more fully and per- 
fectly bestowed in Holy Communion. For in saying 
that the Eucharist is supplementary to Baptism, we are 
not to be understood as if it were but a mere addendum 
to it, but rather its full growth and perfection. It is 
its supplement, as being greater than it, as filling it out, 
and, as it were, absorbing it into itself. Baptism is the 
foundation ; Communion is the superstructure. Bap- 
tism is as the root ; Communion is as the fruitful plant. 
For the Christian life, which has need of communion 
after baptism, is a life of growth, — the waste to be re- 
paired is the waste of a developing life, — just as the 
physical nourishment of the growing child is a supply 
of the waste of growing limbs, which are restored to 
a greater size and strength. Hence the correspondence 
between Baptism and Communion, and their mutual 
relation.. As the baptized communicant is penitent, he 
receives continual assurance of pardon by the atone- 
ment; as he is faithful, he is granted power to live 



a John, vi. 57. b John, vi. 54. 

c I would have it constantly remembered, that in speaking thus, 
the faith spoken of is "faith working by love." 



294 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

more truly according to his allegiance; as he is regen- 
erate, he is advanced in the possession and power of 
the life eternal. 

The total conception of the Holy" Eucharist is three- 
fold, corresponding to the threefold office to which our 
Saviour was anointed. It is a Memorial, a Sacrifice, 
and a Feast, — a memorial left us by our Prophet ; a 
sacrifice authorized by our Priest ; a feast provided by 
our King. It is in its entireness the act by which we 
make good our claim of the Anointed One to be our 
Prophet, our Priest, ourYAwg. We are learners in His 
school ; sinners seeking His intercession and absolution ; 
subjects bound to His rule, and dependent upon Him for 
subsistence. Each view is full of thought, which here 
can only be hinted at in passing, as we press forward to 
the close of this book. 

i. It was the office of Christ, our Prophet, to teach 
the truth of His Father, and to take the most effectual 
precautions against the quick forgetfulness of mankind. 
While upon earth, He had few disciples, and they 
feeble and obscure. When He ascended into heaven, 
He gave promise of a second Advent to judge the 
quick and dead. After His ascension, His few disci- 
ples became His organized Church by the reception of 
the informing Spirit ; and the term of its present or- 
ganization is the interval between His first and His 
second coming. In that interval it is her mission to 
increase and spread, and carry over the whole earth, 
her memory of her Redeemer. But in His absence 
there is danger of forgetfulness which must be guarded 
against. In the midst of earthly wants and pursuits, 
the disciples of Christ might become absorbed in en- 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 295 

grossing cares, choked with the deceitfulness of riches, 
entangled in the world, and forgetful of the word of 
life. Christ provided against this loss of His truth. 
First, by the written word, — the records of His life, 
and the Apostolic commentaries on His teaching. But 
this, though invaluable to regulate faith, was not alone 
sufficient to implant it, — inasmuch as a mere volume 
might be treated with neglect. It could not search out 
for converts; it must be sought unto. Hence, secondly, 
by the ministry, who were set apart to the sole and 
exclusive work of building up believers in the faith, and 
urging it upon those who were not yet converted. But 
even the ministry might be neglected, unless the 
Christian believer were bound to them, and with them 
to Christ, by some necessary bond. Hence, thirdly, 
the Sacrament, instituted as a memorial, — minister and 
people united thereby in the bonds of faith with the 
Redeemer, of whom the one is to preach, and in whom 
both are to believe. "This do in remembrance of 
me." It is the distinctive worship of the Church, as 
an act of faith, the constant memorial before God of 
Christ, our prophet, priest, and king. 

2. Correspondent to His office as Priest, it is a Sac- 
rifice. Not as Rome affirms without authority, " sl 
propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead;" nor 
yet, as the direct opposite, the mere commemoration 
of a sacrifice once made ; but a true Eucharistic sacri- 
fice, — a "sacrifice of thanksgiving" for an atonement 
fully made, and a propitiation perfect and sufficient. 
The propitiatory sacrifices of the Law, needful as types 
before the oblation of the Cross, are now and forever 
abolished. ' ' The blood of bulls and goats which could 



296 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

never take away sin," is no more to be sprinkled upon 
the altar of burnt offering; because "Christ being 
come, an high priest of good things to come, by a 
greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with 
hands ; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but 
by His own blood, has entered in once into the Holy 
Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." 
But the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the Eucharistic sacri- 
fice, is not so abolished ; it is still offered up a true 
sacrifice, the memorial of a completed redemption. 
The priestly act of the minister in the church on earth, 
the broken bread and the outpoured wine, offered up 
upon that "altar whereof they have no right to eat 
which serve the tabernacle," unite with the priest- 
hood of our Lord and the sacrifice of His body and 
blood on Mount Calvary ; the merits of which enable 
us, as "a royal priesthood," to "offer ourselves, our 
souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice 
unto God," the prayers and thanksgivings of devout 
worshippers being mingled with the incense of His 
intercession, who "hath an unchangeable priesthood." 
Thus, as the Eucharistic memorial confirms our faith, 
the Eucharistic sacrifice strengthens our hope, through 
the assurance it gives of an all-sufficient ransom. 

3. In its relation to the Kingly office of our Saviour, 
it is a Feast. In this view, it is more especially con- 
nected with the subject of these pages. What has 
already been said respecting the communication, by 
means of the Sacrament, of the Body and Blood of 
Christ, belongs to this part of the transaction. This 
appeals to our charity, as the others to our faith and 
hope — the memorial, to faith ; the sacrifice, to hope ; 



Sacraments in the System of Grace, 297 

the feast, to charity ; — and all to earnest Christian work 
for our own salvation, and the salvation of the world. 

Now the Feast of the Holy Eucharist enters as a factor 
into our religious life in a twofold way. It is the repara- 
tion of a loss ; it is also the monitor of Christian progress. 
We are continually losing, little by little, by our vol- 
untary and involuntary slips and failings, our baptis- 
mal grace, — and that, notwithstanding the great help 
afforded by the grace of the Holy Spirit ; even though 
the Christian may be actually making progress in sanc- 
tification, and in the ability to bring his actions more 
and more near to the Divine standard of duty. This 
may seem a paradox; but, theoretically, it is strictly 
true, and lies at the foundation of a correct, practical 
view of the relation of the Eucharist to our spiritual 
needs. The illustration before used may help the 
reader to comprehend the fact the more readily. The 
Christian in the present life may be likened to a grow- 
ing youth, whose frame enlarges by daily increase, 
while his system constantly wastes by the wear of 
muscle and destruction of tissue. Were the waste 
permitted to go on unchecked, notwithstanding the 
growth, — nay, because of it, — death would soon super- 
vene. So in the spiritual life. Every act, inasmuch as 
it partakes of imperfection through the still remaining 
"concupiscence" of the regenerate nature, is an ele- 
ment of waste of the baptismal life ; because it taints 
the soul with sin by reason of its imperfection ; while 
yet, since it is done through grace more perfectly than 
the last, it marks growth in grace ; just as bodily ex- 
ercise promotes the waste and the growth together. 
Hence, it will at once be seen, the Eucharistic partici- 
26 



298 Threefold Grace of tlie Holy Trinity. 

pation bears the same relation to the soul that the 
natural food does to the body. 

Life and death are the two terms of spiritual exist- 
ence. Death is not annihilation. It is not for us to 
conceive the fearful ultimate reality of eternal death ; 
and our prayer to God is that we may never know the 
meaning of those awful words ; but we know that it is 
not annihilation. The soul is immortal, and yet it 
may die, — nay, without Christ, it is dead. " Dead in 
trespasses and sins," it is out of God's favor, cut off 
from the influences of the Holy Ghost, out of the har- 
mony of all the world, corrupt with all manner of sin, 
and subject to the vengeance of the Divine wrath. The 
death of the soul, then, is a state of total sin, with all its 
terrible consequences. On the other hand, the state 
of life is the state of righteousness communicated by re- 
generation in Christ, and preserved in continual and 
progressive sanctification. Between these two points, 
total death and perfect life, lies the interval of Christian 
being j and this may be traversed from life to death, 
by imperceptible steps, as well as by bold leaps. When 
a person becomes regenerate, the change from condem- 
nation to pardon is instantaneous, — it is God's act of a 
moment ; but it would be strange indeed if persons 
fell entirely from the grace of regeneration in opposi- 
tion to the strivings of the Spirit, as quickly as it was 
wrought in them by His power. When one sins after 
regeneration, so as to die forever, that death is the sum 
total of all his sins unrepented of. One sin might have 
been repented of and forgiven ; but sins persisted in 
and repeated bar the heart at length against repent- 
ance and against mercy. A course of sin, then, is the 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 299 

downward road from life to death. The great and 
deadly sins are the acute diseases which lead immedi- 
ately to the catastrophe ; the waste of the soul is the sum 
of the imperceptible, involuntary sins of ignorance, of 
omission, of commission, of nature, of carelessness, 
which each of us, day by day, commits. Now, were it 
not for our Lord's provision of Divine food and nour- 
ishment of our regenerate life, by the grace of the Holy 
Eucharist, this waste would go on without any repair 
until the soul died of inanition, the baptismal life being 
(as it were) entirely expended or withdrawn. 

This constant waste, or tendency to death, is inhe- 
rent in our fallen nature, though regenerate, and there- 
fore it is, in a way, mixed up with our progressive ad- 
vance in holiness of outward life. For, to recur to our 
illustration, the youth, if he were in a consumption, 
would continue growing in size of frame, while yet he 
was wasting of the disease ; so the Christian, without the 
constant nourishment of the grace ordinarily given in 
the Holy Communion, might, so far as his acts of obe- 
dience and endeavors after holiness of walk would 
avail, be really growing in personal sanctification ; 
while yet the lapses and imperfections attending even 
his best efforts would have a reflex action upon his bap- 
tismal life, which can only be adequately represented by 
that figure of waste. It is true that to attempt to state 
this, formally and scientifically, may provoke a de- 
murrer ; but when we come practically to verify our ex- 
perience as it exists in our own consciousness, we accept 
these two apparently contradictory facts as the ground 
of our religious thought and conversation. We 
speak, as prompted by experience, on the one hand, 



300 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

of our many faults, and failings, and lapses, we confess 
them as sins, and sorrow for, and repent of them ; but, 
on the other hand, we hope that we are growing in 
grace, that we are gaining in sanctification, and living 
daily more and more as it becometh the children of our 
Father in heaven. We find, practically, no contradic- 
tion in these statements ; they cohere perfectly in our 
experience ; and therefore they may be accepted when 
stated scientifically as well as popularly. 

The explanation of the apparent contradiction con- 
sists in the distinction between grace given and grace (so 
to say) assimilated. We have shown that grace may re- 
main, as it were, quiescent, as, for example, in baptized 
infants, before they have reached the age of moral con- 
sciousness. It is necessary, in order that the Divine life 
may assimilate to itself the nature and being of man, that 
he should act under its impulses ; the acts of the Chris- 
tian life are, as it were, the kneading and compounding 
into one mass of the Divine and natural life of the soul. 
By this means the Divine life grows into the full-formed 
plant of Christian virtue. But, in the process of the 
assimilation, there are, as it were, counter-currents in 
the circulation ; the perfection of the Divine life flows 
into the soul's natural life, purifying and sanctifying it 
under the auxiliary influence of the Holy Spirit j but, 
on the other hand, the faults and imperfections of the 
actions of man react upon the inflowing current, min- 
gling with it the corruption of our sins, and thus, to that 
extent, absorbing and destroying it, so that new sup- 
plies must be drawn from the fountain of life by the 
Sacrament of Communion. 

It is not intended to assert that when baptized Chris- 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 301 

tians are placed, by the Providence of God, in such 
situations that they cannot receive the Holy Commu- 
nion, their life of regeneration is subject to total decay, 
and themselves to eternal loss, while yet they are en- 
deavoring to grow in the grace of sanctification. It is 
distinctly laid down that the Sacrament and the grace 
of the Sacrament are different ; and, therefore, in such 
cases, where the want of the Sacrament -is providential, 
and beyond the control of the person himself, God 
will convey the grace by other and invisible means, 
nourishing and replenishing the, baptismal life. But 
the ordinary means of this spiritual nourishment, for 
the great mass of Christians who are not in excep- 
tional situations, is the Sacrament of Holy Commu- 
nion. By this means, received in repentance and 
faith and charity, the members of the Church of 
t Christ are fed with His body and blood, they receive 
constant renewals of the baptismal life, they are ce- 
mented more firmly, " as living stones" into the " tem- 
ple of His body," they are united more closely with 
Him, as their Redeemer, and obtain the gift of all the 
communicable attributes which are implied in the par- 
taking of His body and blood. 

The benefit of the Holy Communion, therefore, as a 
means of grace, is twofold : firstly, the replenishing of 
the baptismal life, thus repairing our spiritual losses; 
and secondly, the carrying forward our sanctification to 
a higher point ; aiding in the growth, as well as restor- 
ing the waste of the soul's life. For sanctification is, 
as has been already shown, the assimilation of the con- 
duct and the active powers of the Christian to the 
Divine life,, under the influence of the grace of the Holy 



302 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

Spirit, which is to the Divine seed, as air, light, heat, 
and moisture are to natural plants. Hence, unless the 
Divine life be replenished, as oil in a burning lamp, 
it cannot advance the work of sanctification. There 
will be a point where the loss in one direction will 
balance the gain in the other; and then, as the waste 
will continue without any correspondent gain, the life 
cannot be stationary at that point, but must recede on 
both lines. Hence, though sanctification is the work 
of the Holy Spirit, which does not depend on Sacra- 
ments for its exhibition, it cannot advance, except on 
the condition that the baptismal life is fed with Eucha- 
ristic nourishment. The baptismal life must be kept up 
to its original vigor; and the active life must advance 
beyond its former attainments, as the condition of 
worthily partaking of the Lord's Supper. 

By this course of remark, we arrive at the qualifica- 
tions set down by the Church as requisite, in those who 
come to Communion, and the reasons for them. 
" What is required," it is asked in the Catechism, "of 
those who come to the Lord's Supper?" The answer 
is : " To examine themselves, whether they repent them 
truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead 
a new life ; have a lively faith in God's mercy through 
Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death ; 
and be in charity with all men." It has been made 
matter of objection to the Church, that she makes 
Christian effort, by the doctrine of baptismal regenera- 
tion, to be the effort to regain a lost innocence. 3 The 

a E.g. Robertson's Sermons, vol. ii. p. Si. In that sermon, it 
is true, he calls it the Romish view ; but he does so to discredit it 
by misnaming as well as misstating it. 



Sacraments in the System of Grace. 303 

representation is not a true one. It is the attempt to 
replenish the baptismal graces, but it is also the en- 
deavor to advance in active holiness beyond all that 
we have reached hitherto. The two are inseparable. 
Hence the required qualifications : firstly, repentance 
for the sins which have caused the loss ; secondly, faith 
and charity, the fruits of precedent sanctification, and 
the ground of further advancement. For unless there 
had been sin, and therefore loss, there would have been 
no need of repentance ; and unless there had been a 
measure of sanctification, by the grace of the Spirit, 
there would be no possibility of faith and charity. 

The Holy Communion, therefore, is the keystone of 
the arch of Divine grace, which binds in its place all 
the parts of the system. It is the means of the Chris- 
tian's perfection, and has its place in the Church on 
earth, as the representative of that reward which is re- 
served for the saints in the heaven above. For that 
reward will consist in the cleansing body and soul from 
all the last remains of sin ; in perfecting sanctification ; 
and in giving the soul to feast forever on the glorious 
vision of God. The Holy Communion is in each par- 
ticular the representative of the end. It follows, there- 
fore, that as the object of life, as a whole, is the attain- 
ment of final blessedness, that object will be accom- 
plished if every part of life be lived in the endeavor to 
be the worthy recipient of each successive Holy Com- 
munion. 

And thus we are brought to the last thing necessary 
to be noticed in this treatise : that the grace of the 
Holy Spirit is auxiliary to the grace of the Son in this 
respect also. 



304 Threefold Grace of the Holy Trinity. 

It is made sufficiently plain that the prevenient grace 
of the Spirit is auxiliary to the grace of the Son, in con- 
verting the sinner to the right frame of mind and heart 
for the reception of Holy Baptism. The aiding and 
sanctifying grace of the Spirit, in like manner, has for 
its object the making the Christian a worthy recipient 
of the Holy Communion. For without that grace, 
moulding and controlling the active life, and enabling 
the baptismal grace to take root in the soil of the heart, 
neither the repentance nor the faith, nor the charity 
required is a possible thing. And inasmuch as the 
communication of the life of Christ, in its highest de- 
gree, is the gift of the title to heaven, and the power 
which reconciles us to God the Father, the grace of the 
Spirit has wrought its full effect when it has sanctified 
the believer for the reception of the body and blood of 
our crucified Lord, by which " He dwelleth in us and 
we in Him." 

The threefold grace of the Holy Trinity is the par- 
doning, justifying grace of the Father, the redeeming 
grace of the Son, and the sanctifying grace of the 
Spirit. And the relation of each to the other is that 
the grace of the Spirit prepares us to receive the grace 
of the Son, and the grace of the Son admits us to the 
grace of the Father j having attained which, we have 
joy and happiness forever. The grace of the Father 
enables us to become, the grace of the Son enables us 
to be, and the grace of the Holy Spirit enables us to 
live as the children of God. 






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